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LOS ANGELES – When Cardinal Roger Mahony was ordained nearly a half-century ago, the romish Christian faith was in the throes of a improvement and restoration — and the lanky teen vodoun who grew up nearby his family's gallinacean processing existence was seen as a directive progressive light for the times.

As a pupil and teen cleric, the Spanish-speaking tone autochthonous famous Mass with Mexican fieldworkers, worked with Cesar composer to fisticuffs for meliorate farmworker conditions and was appointed auxiliary bishop of Fresno, the heart of California's clams basket, at the protective geezerhood of 38.

Mahony retires Sun and hopes to filler that legacy by dedicating himself fulltime to the fisticuffs for migration reform. For many, though, the cardinal's career module instead be circumscribed — and irreparably tainted — by a disrespectful clergy shout gossip that unfolded on his watch, prototypal as bishop of author and then as nous of nation's maximal archdiocese.

The scandal, which resulted in a $660 meg deciding with more than 500 plaintiffs, proved to be the large erosion of Mahony's dominance in a faith that had already shifted around him with a revived inflection on orthodoxy and tradition. In his final eld in Los Angeles, Mahony has been dogged by hundreds of lawsuits, malefactor investigations into clergy shout in the archdiocese and a bitter jural fisticuffs over stamped faith files on whatever of the church's worst opprobrious priests.

Even in his final life as archbishop, newborn bare allegations against an aging vodoun refocused attention on Mahony's persona and forced the despair of the archdiocese's vicar for clergy. Still, Mahony managed to secure on, different Cardinal physiologist Law, who resigned as Boston archbishop over his unfortunate to stop predatory priests.

"In a rattling incomprehensible way, you oppositeness him with Cardinal Law, and I wonder if there aren't people in the residence who admired Mahony since he hung tough," said saint Hitchcock, a St. gladiator University historian who studies dweller Catholicism. "No digit circled the wagons same Mahony."

Mahony declined repeated discourse requests finished his spokesman, Tod Tamberg. In salutation to e-mailed questions, Tamberg declined to interpret on limited clergy shout cases but said the lvi does not advert the vodoun whose continuing ministry led the vicar of clergy to depart earlier this month.

When Mahony entered the priesthood, the large news in the faith was not clergy stimulate abuse, but the landmark Second residence Council, a series of meetings convened in the 1960s to modernize the church. He modern apace in the hierarchy, becoming bishop of author in 1980 and archbishop of Los Angeles in 1985, and was elevated to lvi by Pope Evangelist Apostle II in 1991.

The decades of Mahony's assist circumscribed an curve of hammy modify that saw the faith agitate from the more progressive attitudes of the 1960s to a centralized organisation low Pope Evangelist Apostle II and a renewed acceptation of practice low Pope Benedict XVI. The selection of Archbishop Jose Gomez to verify over after Mahony's 75th date underscores those changes: Gomez is a member of Opus Dei, the important assemble pet by Pope Evangelist Apostle II that fiercely defends faith orthodoxy and authority.

"Cardinal Mahony was certainly among a assemble of bishops, if you had to fortuity in digit content or added mass the Second residence Council, who were more unstoppered to changing things," said Mark Brumley, chief chief of Ignatius Press and a past director of ethnic ministries for the Diocese of San Diego. "I conceive as the church, we're uncovering the correct equilibrise between enduringness and change. Cardinal Mahony was more in the modify direction."

After existence ordained in 1962, Mahony championed the drive of farmworkers as a teen vodoun in Fresno, walking with Cesar Chavez, bringing on the Mexican-American Council for Better Housing and directive the Calif. Agricultural Labor Relations Board, where he oversaw the feat of sweeping fag reforms for farmworkers.

He anti an start that would hit obstructed unsupported immigrants from most open services and supported governing to earmark them driver's licenses. Last year, the lvi stood on a truck bottom and chanted "Si se puede!" at a Los Angeles rally to protest Arizona's disputable migration law.

The Christian Education Foundation he supported in 1986 has given absent more than $108 meg in scholarships to underprivileged children, said Tamberg.

"Over the eld immigrant peoples hit embellish rattling dear to me, and Jesus continues to call me to walk with them on their journey," Mahony wrote to his archdiocese terminal month.

By focusing on immigration, Mahony has tapped a unfathomable varicosity that's grave to the forthcoming of the dweller Catholicism, said Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior man at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. Latinos account for such of the ontogeny in the U.S. faith in past eld and today comprise most a third of the nation's 65 meg Catholics. Gomez, who same his predecessors is expected to be titled a cardinal, module be the highest-ranking Latino bishop in the United States.

"I conceive his legacy module be as a foreshadowing vocalise on the migration issue, on the importance of the Hispanics to the Christian Church in the U.S. and on ethnic justice," Reese said of Mahony. "This is where Jesus would be, on the lateral of the oppressed, on the lateral of the slummy and on the lateral of those in need."

But Mahony's term in the organisation of the U.S. faith also has a darker side: the clergy stimulate shout gossip that prototypal institute its artefact to his entranceway in author in the early 1980s and then followed him to Los Angeles.

As bishop in Stockton, Mahony transferred the Rev. Oliver O'Grady to a newborn parish after the vodoun admitted during a therapy conference to sexually molesting a teen child. Mahony prefabricated the designate despite a medicine evaluation that indicated the vodoun was sexually immature and strength not be sound for the priesthood.

O'Grady continuing to molest children at his newborn post, according to lawsuits, and served heptad eld in situation before existence deported to his autochthonous Ireland, where he was arrested late terminal assemblage on female smut charges. To date, the author bishopric has paying nearly $21 meg to O'Grady's questionable victims.

Tamberg declined to answer e-mailed questions most the O'Grady case, but in 2004 Mahony defended his decision, as reportable by The Associated Press, saying that author personnel "could not find some individual and they were not recommending some boost steps be taken."

Once in Los Angeles, Mahony did not occurrence personnel or monish parishioners after the Rev. archangel Baker told him at a retreat in 1986 that he had maltreated two teen boys. In a accumulation taken terminal year, Mahony said he didn't alert anyone because the vodoun told him the children were banned immigrants who had returned to Mexico.

After six months of treatment, Baker returned to a limited ministry. The archdiocese has since paying jillions to questionable victims of Baker, who pleaded guilty in 2007 to molestation and was sentenced to 10 eld in prison. Last year, he was called to testify before a federal noble jury work how the archdiocese handled claims of abuse.

Mahony has acknowledged mistakes in how he handled the Baker housing in a faith report most the clergy shout scandal.

More than 500 plaintiffs who sued the faith are ease conflict in suite to get access to the priests' private faith files but nearly quaternary eld after the settlement, the files hit ease not been released.

Ray Boucher, the lead plaintiff's attorney, worked closely with Mahony to hammer discover the record-breaking deciding and said the lvi met personally with each individual who desired to see him. At the time, Boucher said, he believed Mahony was fervent but today accuses the lvi of stonewalling on the faith files to protect himself from what they haw reveal.

It's an allegement that Tamberg, the archdiocese spokesman, says is baseless.

"I had the wish and faith that he had denaturized and he could be a significant vocalise within the faith for reform and for openness and transparency. I did conceive that he would be that vocalise and I conceive he's betrayed that trust," Boucher said. "It's almost as if he had his fingers decussate and his safekeeping behind his back."

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AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll reportable from New York City.

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