Coal Mine Canaries

I think of all the people who tried to get the Church to stop - to own up to its failures, its protection of pedophiles over children, over the decades.... I think of all the damage done, to children and to faith...

The Los Angeles Archdiocese yesterday released about 12,000 pages of internal memoranda, psychological reports, Vatican correspondence etc related to pedophile priests (looks to be 124 priests).  (News reports state 30,000 pages but apparently it is 12,000 pages.)  At the same time, the current Cardinal removed from administrative or public duties the now-retired Cardinal Mahoney - head of the L.A. Archdiocese until 2011.  Mahoney will remain a priest in good standing. The current Cardinal - Jose Gomez - wrote in his statement regarding Mahoney and the files: "I find these files to be brutal and painful reading. The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil. There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children. The priests involved had the duty to be their spiritual fathers and they failed. We need to acknowledge that terrible failure today." 

The quote can be found in this article, which also outlines the history of these files getting released: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/01/cardinal-mahony-stripped-of-public-church-duties-amid-priest-abuse-.html

The files can be found here: http://clergyfiles.la-archdiocese.org/listing.html

I will try to update with articles that analyze the contents of these 12,000 pieces of paper. It's just paper, right?