Roger M Mahony

The Roman Catholic Church announced Thursday that Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles has been appointed to the Council of Cardinals, a 15-member body that seeks to remedy periodic financial deficits faced by the Vatican. Mahony, who was elevated to cardinal on June 29, already serves on three commissions that are responsible to Pope John Paul II--councils on justice and peace, communications and pastoral care of migrants.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony made a rare courtroom appearance Tuesday, telling jurors in a clergy sex-abuse civil trial that accusations of molestation at a Central Valley church were never brought to his attention during his time as an official in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno. "I don't recall any case while I was here of allegations of sexual abuse of a child," Mahony testified. "I don't know how it would be handled, because I don't recall it."

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony was scheduled to arrive in Somalia today to visit Catholic relief workers at nutrition centers and celebrate Mass for U.S. troops. The Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles left for the famine-ravaged country the day after Christmas and is expected to return Jan. 8. While there, Mahony is scheduled to observe Catholic Relief Services operations. Catholic Relief Services is the overseas and relief arm of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Cardinal Roger Mahony is expected to testify in a clergy sexual abuse lawsuit in Fresno today, marking only the second time he has taken the witness stand to answer questions before jurors about alleged molestation by priests. The Fresno lawsuit was brought by two brothers who say they were molested by a priest for 14 years at a church in Wasco, a small town north of Bakersfield.

Saying that Iraq's missile attacks on Israeli civilians "raises up within all of us horror and revulsion," Archbishop Roger M. Mahony has assured the large Jewish community in Los Angeles that his 3.4-million-member Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles "stands with you" and is offering prayers that the "deranged assaults" will end.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony has gone to the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to keep personnel files on priests confidential. Lawyers for Mahony filed a petition to the Supreme Court on Thursday in the latest move to block a subpoena from Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, who is seeking files as part of a grand jury investigation into alleged sexual abuse by priests.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony called on Southern California Catholics to observe a day of fasting and prayer Wednesday, asking parishioners to show solidarity with undocumented immigrants and pray for legislators as they debate immigration reforms in Washington. Mahony will celebrate a special Mass at noon Wednesday at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to mark the day, which comes in the midst of a fierce debate in Washington over competing immigration reform bills.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony underwent arthroscopic surgery Thursday morning at St. John's Pavilion in Santa Monica to repair a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder. Mahony, 68, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles, then returned to his residence at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Dr. Kevin Ehrhard, Mahony's surgeon, called the operation "very successful."

Since his elevation as a Roman Catholic Cardinal, Roger M. Mahony has bowed to advice and grounded himself--selling the $400,000 jet helicopter he has piloted around the three-county Archdiocese of Los Angeles since 1989. Advisers suggested other modes of transportation "might be better," an archdiocese spokesman said Thursday. Mahony indicated that "with new and increasing responsibilities," he would not have time to keep current with the "many changes in aviation around Southern California."

While supporters of Councilman Richard Alarcon and former Assemblyman Richard Katz continued to exchange accusations over campaign tactics in the San Fernando Valley's state Senate race, another controversy was still unresolved Monday. On election day, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony castigated Alarcon for sending out a campaign mailer that featured a photo of Mahony administering Holy Communion to Alarcon in church. Mahony said the mailer incorrectly implied that he endorsed Alarcon.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony spoke with Los Angeles Police Department detectives Wednesday after it was revealed that he told a group of priests he had been assaulted last summer by a man who was angry about the clergy abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. Mahony spoke informally with detectives during a telephone conversation and did not want to pursue an investigation, LAPD Lt. Paul Vernon said.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony told a recent gathering of priests that he was assaulted last summer by a man enraged about the Roman Catholic Church's clergy abuse scandal, according to several sources familiar with the discussion. Mahony, 71, told priests attending the Los Angeles Archdiocese's annual pastoral meeting in October that he had been knocked down and badly bruised in July, near the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown L.A.

They arrived at the civil courthouse in downtown Los Angeles with their spouses, their parents, girlfriends or siblings. One group of childhood friends, now in their 50s, came together; as girls, they had been molested by the same priest. Some sought an apology, others reconciliation. And some just hoped to vent their outrage and be heard, directly, by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who has headed the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles since 1985.

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.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony said Sunday that he decided to settle with hundreds of clergy abuse victims after talking with many of them individually over the last year and realizing how deeply they had been hurt by predatory priests. Mahony, in his first public statement since the Los Angeles Archdiocese's record $660-million settlement was reached with 508 claimants, said he told the victims, "Your life, I wish were like a VHS tape, we could put the tape in ...

Parishioners across the sprawling Los Angeles Archdiocese responded with relief, support and a measure of worry Sunday to news that the church will pay $660 million to victims of clergy sexual abuse, the largest payout to date in the nationwide Roman Catholic molestation crisis. But some also angrily blamed Cardinal Roger M. Mahony for failing to reach a settlement in the local cases years earlier.

An attorney for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles on Thursday denied a claim that he attended a 1986 meeting at which a priest told Cardinal Roger M. Mahony that he had sexually abused minors. The attorney, John P. McNicholas, said in a letter faxed to The Times that he has never met the former priest, Michael Stephen Baker, and never been in the same room with him.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony's recovery was "going very well" Tuesday, a day after surgery for removal of a cancerous prostate gland, his surgeon said. Dr. Donald G. Skinner, who performed a radical prostatectomy on Mahony at the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital, said Mahony spent a restless but comfortable night. Skinner said the head of the Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles started on fluids early in the day, and would be on a regular diet by evening. Msgr.

A judge Wednesday ordered Cardinal Roger M. Mahony to testify in a lawsuit alleging that he failed to protect parishioners from a pedophile teacher, but then granted the Los Angeles cleric's request for a trial delay. The lawsuit had been scheduled for trial Monday; Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Haley Fromholtz agreed to a two-month delay. Mary Grant, Western regional director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, called the delay "a shame on the church."

There was a time when Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, leader of the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the United States, was a formidably influential political figure. A decade ago, he was a member of Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan's inner circle and the spiritual leader of a growing community with exponentially expanding power. Today, Mahony remains one of the region's most recognized leaders and a sought-after voice on certain issues.