The American Spectator

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"I hope you have changed your mind by now! By doing it back then, we would not appear to be crumbling under public pressure. It was a huge mistake on our part."

Notice what constitutes a "mistake" here for the cardinal: It is not that the archdiocese failed to report these molesters at the time the molestation occurred, but that it failed to report them before the local press woke up to the scandal.

Winning the PR "battle" and not getting "hauled into a Grand Jury proceeding" are his chief concerns in the e-mails. The Clintonian cardinal just wants to make sure the sepulcher is white -- never mind the corpses rotting within it.

Los Angeles Catholics, meanwhile, wonder what it would take to get the Vatican's attention. Exactly how much scandal and confusion would Cardinal Mahony need to generate before the Vatican asked for his resignation?

Were Mahony the head of a business, he would have had to resign a long time ago. But somehow the standards of accountability are lower for the heads of a divine institution in the business of saving souls.

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