LA archbishop relieves retired cardinal of duties

LOS ANGELES — Retired Cardinal Roger Mahony, the former head of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic diocese, was stripped of his duties Thursday by his successor as the Los Angeles archdiocese released thousands of pages of personnel files of priests accused of child molestation.

“I find these files to be brutal and painful reading,” Archbishop Jose Gomez said in a statement, referring to the newly released files made public by the church Thursday night just hours after a judge’s order. “The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil. There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children.”

Gomez announced that he has “informed Cardinal Mahony that he will no longer have any administrative or public duties.”

The archbishop also said Monsignor Thomas Curry, former vicar of the clergy who was Mahony’s point person for dealing with priests accused of molestation, has stepped down from his post as head of the diocese’s Santa Barbara region.

The public denouncement of Mahony and Curry was highly unusual and marks a shift from the days when members of the church hierarchy emerged largely unscathed for the roles they played in covering up clergy sex abuse, said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit and senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.