The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is the largest archdiocese in the United States and has arguably eclipsed the Archdiocese of Boston as the epicenter in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal. Besides its sheer size, there other important factors relating to Los Angeles toppling Boston in this area:
- Roger Mahony had been in charge of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles since 1985 and was created a cardinal in 1991
- the California state legislature passed “window” legislation in 2003 that allowed survivors of sexual abuse to bring civil lawsuits against their abusers and the Catholic Church for a period of one year, regardless of when the abuse occurred
- the large number of foreign priests serving in the Archdiocese.
In 1985, Bishop Roger Mahony of Stockton California was named to replace Cardinal Timothy Manning as the new archbishop of Los Angeles. At the time, Mahony was 49 years old and considered a strong candidate to lead the largest archdiocese in the country. Unfortunately, those who made the decision in Rome didn’t take into account Mahony’s handling of one of the worst pedophile priests in the world-Oliver O’Grady. O’Grady was an Irish émigré who served in the Diocese of Stockton, under Mahony. He abused, molested, and raped at least 25 children, including an infant. In 1976, he wrote a letter of confession to the parents of children he abused. A copy of the letter was given to the Bishop of Stockton, Merlin Guilfoyle. When Mahony became the bishop of Stockton, O’Grady was still serving in parishes. After a 1984 police molestation investigation of O’Grady, Mahony sent him to counseling but allowed him to continue serving in a parish where he continued to molest children. O’Grady’s sexual abuse didn’t stop until he was sent to prison in 1993. He was paroled in 2000 and deported to Ireland. Most recently, he was arrested again in 2010 for computer pornography. In March 2011, O’Grady was charged with additional sex crimes. For more information about Oliver O’Grady, please watch “Deliver Us from Evil”, a documentary about O’Grady.
Two brothers who were molested by O’Grady sued the Diocese of Stockton and a jury awarded them $30 million (a judge later reduced the award to $7 million).
The molestation letter and the police investigation occurred prior to Roger Mahony’s promotion to Los Angeles. Cardinal Mahony continued to treat abusive priests and survivors in the same manner he treated them in Stockton. He covered for the priests and stonewalled survivors. His legal team fought vigorously from having priests testify in court about the abuse scandal and he did everything in his power from releasing names of priests accused to the public. In fact, a court order had to be issued before Mahony released documents about the priest abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
There have been at least 258 Archdiocese of Los Angeles priests, religious, and deacons accused of sexual abusing children. Some of these have been criminally prosecuted and sent to jail. Cardinal Mahony himself faced a federal grand jury investigation in 2009 for fraud in dealing with priests who’d been accused of sexual abuse.
In July 2007, the Archdiocese settled 508 sexual abuse lawsuits for $660 million.
