Calling Cardinal Roger M. Mahony's actions a "moral failure," Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said Monday that his five-year investigation of how top church officials handled sex-abuse accusations hinges on whether he can obtain confidential church files under a record settlement.
"Cardinal Mahony and many others are going to have to live with their conscience and live with their incredible moral failure to the people of Los Angeles," Cooley said. "We've done everything we can under the constraints of the laws of California."
J. Michael Hennigan, attorney for the Los Angeles Archdiocese, said he is "generally a big fan of Steve Cooley," but that the district attorney's remarks were "irresponsible."
"It is irresponsible for a law enforcement official to suggest that a crime has been committed when he has no evidence of it," Hennigan said.
The settlement with 508 victims, formalized Monday, calls for a private judge to review and release church documents obtained during the negotiations, although attorneys and advocates for the victims noted that details of the handoff have yet to be worked out. They said they doubted the full truth would ever emerge.
John Manly, an attorney for some of the priests' accusers, questioned whether Cooley would follow through with criminal action even if the files produced evidence, saying he suspected the prosecutor does not want to alienate Catholic voters.
"Steve Cooley has played politics with this thing," Manly said.
Cooley spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons denied the speculation, and Deputy Dist. Atty. William Hodgman, who heads the church investigation, noted that the deadline for filing charges was fast approaching as the church pursued its long legal fight to shield the files from view.
Although Mahony has repeatedly apologized to the victims of priestly abuse, the scandal has at least temporarily dimmed his reputation, casting a shadow over the leader of 4.3 million Catholics in the nation's most populous archdiocese.
Hollywood-born, Mahony rose with rare swiftness through the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church -- from shepherding a tiny Chinese-American parish in Stockton to membership in the College of Cardinals, the august body that selects the pope.
Father Thomas Reese, an expert on U.S. bishops and senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, predicted that the settlement would deflate the abuse issue, freeing Mahony to reassert himself on his signature causes, such as immigration, labor and poverty.
