Report: Cardinal Mahony told priests he was beaten up

Rumors had been going around about this for some time, but the news is in all the news media today:

Yesterday (December 4) the Los Angeles Daily News reported (click on this post's title) that Fr. Sal Pilato, principal of Serra High School, said Cardinal Mahony told his annual meeting of priests in October that back in July someone angry about the clergy sex abuse scandal beat him up so badly that he was hospitalized with injuries that then took a month to heal.

The article says:

"Mahony also revealed at the conference that he thought he might be attacked earlier when tensions over the allegations of sexual abuses by priests were at their peak, said [a] priest who did not want to be identified.

"The priest said he thinks Mahony and others mismanaged the scandal by not removing priests who were sexually abusing children sooner and failing to settle cases earlier. That lack of action has damaged the church's reputation and cost it millions of dollars, he said.

"Still, the fact that Mahony was attacked over the scandal and chose not to make it public impressed the priest.

"It appeared to him that Mahony was telling those gathered that if he needed to endure the assault to help people get through this trying time, so be it, that he 'should just take it because people were so mad, and rightly so,' the priest said.

"'I was moved. I really was,' he said."

The article also says:

"The Rev. Joseph Shea, pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Glendale, sees Mahony's reaction to the attack as Christ-like...Some of the priests in attendance said Mahony should have reported the assault to police, while others were shocked that something like that could happen to the leader of the more than 4million Catholics in the Los Angeles Archdiocese."