This is how the good ole boys of the Catholic Church work: they give Cardinal Mahoney a wrist slap for keeping and moving around pedophile priests

The Roman Catholic Church is one of the most insular ole boys clubs that you can find. While they claim to be "pro-family", the Church's male hierarchy tends to protect their own hides -- at the expense of children.

Here is the story from the New York Times:

LOS ANGELES — Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who retired less than two years ago as the leader of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, was removed from all public duties by his successor, Archbishop José H. Gomez, as the church complied with a court order to release thousands of pages of internal documents that show how the cardinal shielded priests who sexually abused children. 

The documents, released as part of a record $660 million settlement in 2007 with the victims of abuse, are the strongest evidence so far that top officials for years purposely tried to conceal abuse from law enforcement officials. The files, which go from the 1940s to the present, are the latest in a series of revelations that suggest that the church continued to maneuver against law enforcement even after the extent of the abuse crisis emerged. 

Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry, who was the vicar for clergy and one of the cardinal’s top deputies and his adviser on sexual abuse, also stepped down as the regional bishop for Santa Barbara, Calif. 

The church had fought for years to keep the documents secret, and until this week it argued that the names of top church officials should be kept private. In letters written in the 1980s, then-Father Curry gave suggestions for how to stop the police from investigating priests who admitted that they had abused children, like stopping the priests from seeing therapists who would be required to alert law enforcement about the abuse.
Both Cardinal Mahony and Bishop Curry have publicly apologized in the past, but have said that they were naïve at the time about the effectiveness of treatment for abusers and the impact on victims. 

...Cardinal Mahony and Bishop Curry are still able to celebrate Mass and other religious duties. But Cardinal Mahony, a vocal advocate of immigrant rights, will no longer speak publicly, as he has done frequently since his retirement in 2011, a spokesman for the archdiocese said.

This award-winning 2006 documentary, "Deliver Us from Evil", details how Mahony shifted child-abusing priests to different parishes, causing untold suffering for nearly 100 children and their families.

Given the long-term harm done by Mahony to innocent children, he should be made to ask for forgiveness from every person harmed by his inaction and career opportunism (of wanting to become a cardinal and letting nothing -- including the threat of a public scandal and the welfare of children -- get in his way). Truly shameful.