Dark charges from Cardinal Mahony’s inner circle

A monsignor testifies he wrote a memo urging the cardinal to tell police about molestation by a priest. Perhaps, a paper trail exists.

If you’ve got rosary beads handy, please say a prayer for the leader of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Last week was not a good one for Cardinal Roger Mahony, and there may be no letup in weeks to come if a certain monsignor continues to testify in a deposition being taken as part of a civil case against Mahony and the diocese.

Msgr. Richard Loomis, former vicar of clergy for the archdiocese, said under oath that in the year 2000 he wrote a memo advocating that the archdiocese inform police about allegations of sexual abuse by a now-defrocked priest named Michael Baker. Mahony, Loomis testified, directed him not to report the allegations.

That testimony grabbed the attention of those who have followed the years-long molestation scandal, in which Mahony has fought like a tomcat to withhold documents sought by investigators and has had PR teams build him an image as a reformer.

In all that time, no one from Mahony’s inner circle had dared stand up and point a finger at the cardinal until Loomis did so last week. With the testimony by Loomis, there wasn’t just a challenge to the archdiocesan leader, but a suggestion that a paper trail exists.

Loomis testified that when he found out Baker was still performing baptisms despite allegations of abuse in the 1990s and orders to discontinue ministry, he sent a memo to Mahony recommending that they call the police. He testified that Mahony “wrote on the memo and initially his response was to proceed but then through the general counsel’s office I was told … that we were going to wait,” said Loomis.

The monsignor also testified that Mahony ordered him not to inform parishes where Baker had worked of allegations against the priest.

… As Luis noted, Mahony knew about Baker’s behavior long before Loomis asked the cardinal to call the police. Baker told The Times in 2002 that he told Mahony of his “problem” in the 1980s. Mahony sent him to a treatment center in New Mexico and then allowed him to continue serving in a limited capacity as long as he stayed away from minors. But Baker’s abuse of boys continued. Luis said he was abused by Baker many times over the course of several years.

“I was 15, a young boy, an altar boy, and my whole family gave their trust to” Baker, Luis said. “We opened our doors to him and the person we thought was a sacred man, a good person, a good human being — it turns out that all along he was a monster.”

John Manly, the attorney who represents Luis and took the Loomis deposition, said he will ask the court to order the archdiocese to produce the memo Loomis spoke of.

“If Loomis is correct,” Manly said, Mahony was “encouraging people not to call police and to intentionally cover it up. You wonder where law enforcement is on this.”