Archbishop Roger Mahony

I think that it is an inappropriate editorial comment to place Archbishop Roger Mahony on the cover in the sort of publicity pose normally reserved for Pee Wee Herman. KATHLEEN ELLISON, Downey

Fifteen years before the clergy sex abuse scandal came to light, Archbishop Roger M. Mahony and a top advisor plotted to conceal child molestation by priests from law enforcement, including keeping them out of California to avoid prosecution, according to internal Catholic church records released Monday. The archdiocese's failure to purge pedophile clergy and reluctance to cooperate with law enforcement has previously been known. But the memos written in 1986 and 1987 by Mahony and Msgr.

I want to thank Robert Scheer and Tim Rutten for the excellent interview with Archbishop Roger Mahony ( Nov. 17 ). The questions were well chosen and very well put and the archbishop's answers made me proud to be a Catholic. None of us can ignore these important social issues. Julie Moosbrugger Santa Monica

In one of the largest anti-abortion demonstrations held in Southern California, thousands of people Sunday formed a "life chain" in the form of a cross stretching along 13 miles of roadway in Torrance and surrounding cities. The demonstrators, many who came in buses and cars directly from church, stood along the curbs on both sides of Artesia and Hawthorne boulevards with American flags and anti-abortion placards, holding them high as passing motorists shouted approval or honked horns.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles celebrated the city's large ethnic community in a special Migrant's Day Mass at St. Vibiana's Church. A procession of three dozen clergymen, including Archbishop Roger Mahony, greeted hundreds of immigrants, many dressed in the traditional garb of their homelands. The Mass in the Skid Row cathedral celebrated the annual Catholic Feast of the Epiphany and began the church-sponsored national Migration Week.

The editorial and Archbishop Roger Mahony's statement ("Mahony Assails Polish Prelate on Attacking Jews," Metro, Aug. 31) are refreshing counterpoints to the outrageous statements of Cardinal Glemp. Too often we are quick to condemn words of divisiveness, but slow to praise words of healing. Both The Times and Archbishop Mahony are to be commended for quickly repudiating words of provocation and replacing them with words of reconciliation. RONALD LEVINE Reseda

The expenditure of $395,000 to buy a jet helicopter for the personal use of Archbishop Roger Mahony is sacrilegious, regardless of whether the money was donated ("Gift of Helicopter Will Keep Archbishop Mahony Above the Fray," Metro, Feb. 26). I am a Catholic who attends church weekly. In view of the fact that we are asked almost every week to contribute to the needs of the church--including the missions, the poor, the homeless, the schools, the stewardship and the Christmas decorating fund--his actions are wasteful, to say the least.

Archbishop Roger Mahony announced Thursday that he has picked a Northern California business executive to head the financial operations of the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese, the first time the job has not been assigned to a priest. Following the recommendation of a blue-ribbon search committee, the archbishop named Jose A.

More than 50,000 Latino Catholics filled Dodger Stadium four years ago for a fiesta celebrating a new five-year plan to address spiritual and material needs of the Spanish-speaking population in the Los Angeles Archdiocese. The excited, hopeful crowd greeted Archbishop Roger M. Mahony with cries of "Rogelio! Rogelio," a reference to the bilingual Los Angeles prelate, and applauded loudly when he reviewed goals "to place emphasis on education" and to offer "alternatives to gang participation."

I think that it is an inappropriate editorial comment to place Archbishop Roger Mahony on the cover in the sort of publicity pose normally reserved for Pee Wee Herman. KATHLEEN ELLISON, Downey

IT'S 10 O'CLOCK in the morning at Van Nuys Airport. Roman Catholic Archbishop Roger M. Mahony settles into the cockpit of his blue-and-white Hughes 500D four-passenger jet helicopter, offers a brief silent prayer, then fires up the turbine, eases up on the collective and lifts lightly off the flight line. He rotates right, pours on the power and climbs out to the northwest at maximum torque into a warm, hazy morning.

Regional executives of 11 religious denominations, several of which back the U.S. surgeon general's recommendations supporting the use of condoms as the next best alternative to abstinence, issued a joint statement Tuesday decrying the vandalism at four Catholic churches directed at Archbishop Roger M. Mahony.