Cardinal Mahony's quandary

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Apr 19, 2006

Old friend Dom makes a good point about the Supreme Court decision requiring Cardinal Mahony to turn over priest-personnel files to the district attorney investigating sex-abuse claims. The cardinal, you may recall, argued that he could not relinquish the files, because they were protected by the confessional seal.

Dom's argument:

If Cardinal Roger Mahony hands those files over he will be exposed as cynical and manipulative, because if he really thought those files should be protected under the seal he would go to jail before violating that seal. Canon law requires no less. But if he turns them over, and it looks like he will, then we will see that Mahony simply used the seal of the confessional as a legal tactic to cover his butt.