Is Cardinal Mahony’s censure a sign of a new Catholic Church?

[rug]

Posted at 12:38 PM ET, 02/01/2013
Feb 01, 2013 05:38 PM EST
TheWashingtonPost
By Mathew N. Schmalz

With retired Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony now stripped of his public duties for his mishandling of the sexual abuses cases in his archdiocese, there is a temptation to be either celebratory or cynical.

It’s either an important step in the purification of Catholicism, or it’s an insufficient punishment for a terrible series of crimes.

Does it mark a new beginning for American Catholicism or has nothing really changed?

It all depends upon whether the lesson learned is about punishment or transparency.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/is-cardinal-mahonys-censure-a-sign-of-a-new-catholic-church/2013/02/01/b9bb559c-6c93-11e2-bd36-c0fe61a205f6_blog.html

[hrmjustin]

1. I would love to think it is a new church, but i think that they just got caught and had to do this.

[rug]

2. It's still the same church but maybe the old way of running it has passed.

[hrmjustin]

3. Well to be fair I would say there is a large majority of people in the church lay and clergy that

is just horrified by this whole scandal. If their voices can get to the leadership of the church than the church can become anew.

[hedgehog]

4. Archbishop Gomez was ordained an Opus Dei priest, although his current

superior is the Pope. Mahony was identified by the right wingers as a liberal, especially in regard to liturgy. It's possible we're seeing the conservatives blaming the entire pedophilia cover-up on the liberals, justifying further crack-downs and reform of the reform.

[rug]

5. Or it's simply closing the barn door after the cows left.

It's an institutional problem not a political problem.

Whether it's done at gunpoint or by a belated realization, the institution is changing.

[mykpart]

6. Perhaps it is changing.

But I was disappointed to learn that Mahoney is still eligible to elect a new pope. I'm hoping the censure will extend to keep him from the conclave.

[goldent]

7. It is a gradual process

I once worked for a large corporation that had run-ins with the SEC over creative accounting practices and other stuff. We had to put in place various kinds of training, etc, to educate everyone about the facts of the law (even through 99% of us were not in positions where it applied).

Now I think that the top level mgmt was all for 100% compliance with the law, and almost everyone in the company agreed in principle. But when push came to shove, I believe that some people in the trenches would repeat the violations they had done before (just a bit smarter this time). But there wouldn't be quite as many willing to do it, as last time.