Catholic Church

As horrifying as it is to note, the timing of the HBO documentary "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God," which premieres Monday night, could not have been better if divine intervention were involved. Last week, the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles released documents chronicling how Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and other church officials managed to thwart investigations into the sexual abuse of hundreds of local children to protect the accused priests. To which this film by Oscar winner Alex Gibney essentially says, "If you think that's bad, watch this.

In January 2002, the Boston Globe published the first in a series of articles that exposed the sordid history of sexual abuse of youth in the Boston Roman Catholic archdiocese. Those stories revealed how church officials had kept knowledge of abuse from parishioners and kept abusing priests in parishes where they continued to blight the lives and faith of the innocent. Later in 2002, as more cases of sexual abuse in more dioceses tumbled out of the dark and the silence to which they had been consigned, the U.S. Conference of Bishops hurriedly promised transparency.

Re "Mahony tried to conceal abuse," Jan. 22 Profound thanks to The Times for its efforts to make public the truth regarding the protection of priests who abuse children. This is another deeply disturbing example of the protection of the organization - the Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy - not the Catholic Church as the people of God. This irresponsibility does not end with Cardinals Roger M. Mahony and Bernard Law (formerly of Boston), but the guilt is also that of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, who knew what was happening in the United States.

For too long in the Philippine Congress, the priorities of the Roman Catholic Church took precedence over what most Filipinos wanted - and needed. Finally, after 14 years of debate and delay, lawmakers passed a bill that will provide free or subsidized birth control to poor people as well as require sex education in schools and mandate training in family planning for community health workers. Even though 80% of the nation's population is Catholic, birth control has long been available to those who want it - as long as they could pay. Contraception has been out of reach for most of the poor, though.

NEWTOWN, CONN. - How could this happen? And why? Msgr. Robert Weiss could offer limited comfort to the afflicted citizens of this traumatized New England town in the aftermath of an unimaginable slaughter. "We know there is no answer," Weiss told an overflow crowd Friday evening at a wrenching memorial service at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church. Earlier, he had spent five hours inside a fire station next to Sandy Hook Elementary School with the mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers of slain children.

The schedule of Sunday Masses for Catholic students at USC accommodates their studying, partying and sleeping habits. Services are offered at 10:30 a.m., 7 p.m. and at 10 p.m., a popular option that is lightheartedly nicknamed the "Last Chance Mass. " Upward of 400 USC students previously attended at least one Mass a week at a now-demolished chapel just north of the university's main campus. The showing was respectable but still a small fraction of the estimated 10,000 Roman Catholic students - about a quarter of the overall enrollment - at the nonsectarian university.

SAO PAULO, Brazil - As euphoric rock music played, dozens of men in suits swarmed the aisles with hand-held credit card machines to take donations from the faithful. The pastor smiled at the crowd in the downtown headquarters of the mega-church and, as cameras rolled, belted out: "We all voted already, right? Who voted today?" In the spotlight, he made no mention of whom he hoped his flock had cast ballots for. But for most in the crowd, and those watching the election for the mayor of Latin America's largest city, it was clear which candidate Brazil's increasingly influential evangelical churches were throwing their weight behind.

Re "Vatican II: Gone but not forgotten," Opinion, Oct. 14 John Gehring's Op-Ed article favoring a more progressive Roman Catholicism was self-serving. Progressive activists often underweight the fact that the Catholic Church believes deeply that abortion is intrinsically evil, that marriage is between one man and one woman, and that any religion, including the Catholic Church, should operate without government coercion to abandon its doctrines. The church isn't moving backward; it is simply cleaning up a mess created by those who tried to change its fundamental doctrines and deeply held beliefs.

Mary Jean Pew Head of Catholic college, aide to Jerry Brown Mary Jean Pew, 82, a former nun who taught history and government at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles then served as the school's acting president before it closed in 1980, died Friday at her home in Marina del Rey after battling lung cancer and other illnesses, according to her husband, City News Service President Douglas Faigin. Pew had been an advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown during his first term, serving as an assistant campaign manager, and was one of his first appointees to the California State University Board of Trustees in 1975.