Disgraced cardinal who covered up child sex abuse to close Pope’s coffin

Roger Michael Mahony was stripped of all his administrative and public duties in 2013.

Roger Michael Mahony was stripped of all his duties in 2013 due to his role in covering up child sex abuse scandals.

This came after the LA archdiocese released thousands of pages of files on priests accused of child molestation.

The documents showed that the now 89-year-old protected the priests from investigation.

Now, Mahony who is a is a member of the College of Cardinals, is part of the group who have been ‘requested’ to take part in the closing of the Pope's coffin tomorrow evening.

It is unknown who decided to put Mahony in this position.

After running the LA archdiocese for 25 years, he retired in 2011 before 12,000 pages of files were released.

The documents revealed that rather than defrocking the involved priests and contacting authorities, the archdiocese sent them to out-of-state treatment facilities.

They were sent out of state due to laws in California that hold therapists legally obligated to report any evidence of child abuse.

Cardinal Mahony wrote to a New Mexico treatment center in 1986, where abusive priest Monsignor Peter Garcia, had been sent.

He wrote: “I believe that if Monsignor Garcia were to reappear here within the archdiocese we might very well have some type of legal action filed in both the criminal and civil sectors."

Garcia admitted to abusing dozens on young boys, most of whom came from immigrant families, even threatening to have them deported if they told anyone of his acions.

He was never prosecuted criminally and is now dead.

Furthermore, Monsignor Thomas J Curry wrote to Cardinal Mahony in 1987 over the abusive Reverand Michael Baker who was also sent to New Mexico for treatment.

In a 2013 statement, Mahony apologised to the victims of abuse saying: “Various steps toward safeguarding all children in the church began here in 1987 and progressed year by year as we learned more about those who abused and the ineffectiveness of so-called ‘treatments’ at the time.

“Nonetheless, even as we began to confront the problem, I remained naïve myself about the full and lasting impact these horrible acts would have on the lives of those who were abused by men who were supposed to be their spiritual guides.”

Pope Francis has been accused of not taking enough action on the child sex abuse scandal during his papacy.

On Monday, just hours after the death of Francis, abuse survivors spoke out to say that he had 'fundamentally' failed to change the culture which allowed abusers to thrive.