Archdiocese

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has sold its 12-story administrative headquarters building to help pay last year's $660-million settlement with people alleging sex abuse by clergy, a spokesman said Tuesday. The Archdiocesan Catholic Center was sold to Jamison Properties of Los Angeles for $31 million, archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamberg said.

Prodded by an ultraconservative Catholic group, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., has criticized Friday's scheduled speech at Georgetown University by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. Although Sebelius favors abortion rights, the "sin" that incurred the archdiocese's displeasure was the Obama administration's proposed rule requiring insurance coverage for contraception for employees of religious hospitals and educational institutions. Because Sebelius' actions "present the most direct challenge to religious liberty in recent history," the archdiocese suggested, students at the Jesuit-affiliated university shouldn't be able to hear her speak at an awards ceremony for its Public Policy Institute.

Cardinal Roger Mahony walked slowly across the sanctuary of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, leaning softly on his shepherd's staff as he completed one of his last public acts as archbishop of Los Angeles. Passing the altar on one side and his assembled bishops on the other, he finally reached the man who was taking over his position as head of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese. Mahony handed the crooked staff, known as a crosier, to Archbishop Jose Gomez, symbolizing one of the most ancient traditions of the church, the transfer of authority from one bishop to another.

Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, who was accused by local prosecutors during his 15-year tenure as head of the Philadelphia archdiocese of ignoring sexual abuse of children by hundreds of priests, has died. He was 88. The Roman Catholic archdiocese announced that Bevilacqua died in his sleep Tuesday night in his apartment at a seminary in a Philadelphia suburb. Bevilacqua, known for his regular visits to all 302 parishes in the archdiocese and for his strong stands against racism and anti-Semitism, was also sharply critical of homosexuals and refused for several years to close Catholic churches and schools on the Rev. Martin Luther King's birthday.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Galveston-Houston is being elevated to the rank of archdiocese because of the growth of Catholicism in Texas, church officials said. The designation by Pope John Paul II makes Texas the second state in the country, joining California, to have two archdioceses. Galveston-Houston will join San Antonio in administering to about 6.5 million Roman Catholics in the state. Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza was named archbishop.

The beleaguered Archdiocese of Boston eliminated 15 staff positions as part of budget cuts made necessary in part by the Roman Catholic Church's ongoing sex abuse scandal in which it has played a central role. The archdiocese said that the economic downturn and fallout from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were the driving forces behind its move to slash its budget by a third, or about $8 million.

The Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese said it will buy two Catholic cemeteries in Tucson for $3.9 million as part of an effort to rescue the financially ailing diocese in southern Arizona. The cemeteries will be operated by the Los Angeles archdiocese, but a spokesman for Los Angeles Archbishop Roger M. Mahony said this week that the agreement calls for the Tucson diocese to repurchase the facilities for the same amount when financially feasible.

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati pleaded no contest to charges of failing to tell authorities about sex-abuse allegations, becoming the third Roman Catholic diocese to strike a deal with prosecutors in a criminal investigation. The archdiocese was sentenced to $10,000 in fines on five misdemeanor counts. Each of the five counts of failure to report a felony alleged "an institutional knowledge that certain felony sex crimes involving minors occurred."

Cardinal Timothy Manning, a mild-mannered Roman Catholic prelate who led the Los Angeles archdiocese through a 15-year period that saw it grow into the nation's most populous and ethnically diverse, died Friday afternoon. He was 79 and died at the Kenneth Norris Jr. Cancer Center at the University of Southern California, where he had been admitted June 7. Bill Rivera, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said he died at 2:25 p.m. and that his successor, Archbishop Roger M. Mahony, was at his bedside.

From humble beginnings in southwest Mexico, Gabino Zavala entered the priesthood and embarked on a remarkable journey that landed him squarely in the corner offices of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese. An auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, he oversaw the church's vast San Gabriel region, a diverse community considered vital to the future of the church. Then, from his pulpit, he became a forceful champion for social and economic justice. Popular and approachable, Zavala was widely known by his first name.

From humble beginnings in southwest Mexico, Gabino Zavala entered the priesthood and embarked on a remarkable journey that landed him squarely in the corner offices of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese. An auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, he oversaw the church's vast San Gabriel region, a diverse community considered vital to the future of the church. Then, from his pulpit, he became a forceful champion for social and economic justice. Popular and approachable, Zavala was widely known by his first name.

Dwindling enrollment and other challenges have decimated urban Catholic schools nationwide, but a high-profile initiative to raise $100 million in tuition assistance may allow thousands of children to continue attending schools in the Los Angeles Archdiocese and save those schools from extinction. The initiative, headed by former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan, will ask supporters to make provisions in their trusts or wills for the archdiocese's Catholic Education Foundation, which already awards thousands of grants annually to needy students.

Ending days of speculation, Pope Benedict XVI has announced a shake-up of leadership in the troubled Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which has been staggered in recent months by a far-reaching sexual abuse scandal. Benedict said Tuesday that he had accepted the resignation of Cardinal Justin Rigali, who has been roundly criticized for his handling of sexual abuse cases. In his place, the pope named Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, who has developed a national reputation as an outspoken conservative, uncompromising in his opposition to abortion and gay marriage.

After four years of waiting to learn the back story of the sex-abuse scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, victims still face one obstacle ? the release of thousands of pages of confidential church documents. Victims of clergy abuse say that release of the personnel files of dead, convicted or admitted pedophile priests will reveal the truth of the hierarchy's complicity, just as it did in Boston when a court compelled church leaders to turn over a trove of papers that showed how officials protected priests from prosecution and shuffled them from parish to parish.

A retired federal judge overseeing clergy sexual abuse cases involving the Archdiocese of Los Angeles said Thursday he was inclined to publicly release most priests' personnel files, but said the names of church officials who dealt with the claims of abuse should be kept from disclosure. "I've tried to balance the interests of everybody," Judge Dickran Tevrizian told a phalanx of attorneys during a hearing at a private mediation firm in downtown Los Angeles. "I don't want to have what is considered to be collateral damage to anyone other than the accused priests or former priests.

A Mexican man who claims he was abused at age 12 by a priest shuttled between Los Angeles and Mexico can sue the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles in U.S. court under a 222-year-old law addressing foreign complaints, a federal judge has ruled. The case brought against church leaders in Los Angeles and Mexico alleges that Father Nicholas Aguilar Rivera was able to assault dozens of children in both countries because church officials conspired to conceal his history of pedophilia.

A Bishop Amat High School teacher and soccer coach has been suspended in connection with an LAPD investigation into alleged "inappropriate conduct" with a female student at a school where he previously coached, Archdiocese of Los Angeles officials said Wednesday.

Here is a transcript of The Times' interview with Coadjutor Archbishop Jose Gomez, conducted the week before Christmas. It has been edited for brevity and clarity. What I primarily wanted to talk to you about is what you've been doing since you've been here, and how you're getting to know the archdiocese ? and what a coadjutor archbishop does. [Laughing] I wish I knew. So let me just begin with that general question: What have you been doing to learn your way around this huge archdiocese?

Cardinal Roger Mahony walked slowly across the sanctuary of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, leaning softly on his shepherd's staff as he completed one of his last public acts as archbishop of Los Angeles. Passing the altar on one side and his assembled bishops on the other, he finally reached the man who was taking over his position as head of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese. Mahony handed the crooked staff, known as a crosier, to Archbishop Jose Gomez, symbolizing one of the most ancient traditions of the church, the transfer of authority from one bishop to another.

When the social and political history of Los Angeles in the late 20th century comes to be written, it's likely that two men will stand out as fundamentally transformative leaders. One will be Tom Bradley, the five-term mayor who changed the city's politics and realigned its economic course; the other will be Cardinal Roger Mahony, the Hollywood-born prelate who has led what is now America's largest Roman Catholic diocese as archbishop for the last quarter-century, a post from which he will retire Sunday on his 75th birthday, as church law requires.