VATICAN CITY (RNS) Ahead of his formal installation on Tuesday, Pope Francis is continuing to send clear signals that he intends to lead a papacy markedly different from his predecessor’s reign — and perhaps different from that of any other pope in modern times.
One of the most embattled members of the College of Cardinals, retired Los Angeles archbishop Roger Mahony, says that the Vatican told him he had to come to the conclave to help elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI.
(RNS) If far less expensive and not quite as mind-numbing as a U.S. presidential campaign, the condensed version of papal campaign politics is not much gentler, or necessarily more effective. Instead it can be nasty, brutish and short.
VATICAN CITY (RNS) The controversy over Cardinal Roger Mahony’s vote in the conclave that will elect a new pope has now reached the Vatican, with at least one cardinal musing aloud that the former archbishop of Los Angeles should consider staying home.
LOS ANGELES (RNS) Retired Cardinal Roger Mahony still has a vote in next month’s conclave to elect a new pope, and despite the abuse scandal unearthed in court documents, his vote was met with a shrug by many local Catholics.
(RNS) Pope Benedict XVI has at times publicly addressed the issue and even met with victims of clergy sexual abuse. But victims’ advocates remain skeptical and critical over his handling of the matter, particularly the failure to punish bishops who protected abusers.
(RNS) The quake that hit Los Angeles last week was an ecclesiastical one: Archbishop Jose Gomez publicly rebuked his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, and stripped him of his official duties. But on reflection, it’s not clear that Mahony was punished at all.
(RNS) Retired Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony has been stripped of his official duties in an unusual public rebuke by his successor that followed the release of thousands of pages of internal church documents showing how Mahony and aides for years conspired to cover up the sexual abuse of children by clergy.
