Mickus Previous Allegation From 2002 Will Not Be Under Review

P recisely six months into the United states of america church's latest full-on storm of abuse revelations, the scandals have claimed a fourth American prelate – this time, in the nation's largest diocese.

At Roman Noon this Wednesday, the Pope accepted the resignation of Auxiliary Bishop Alexander Salazar of Los Angeles, who turned 69 last calendar month.

An immigrant from Republic of costa rica who settled with his family in Southern California in his boyhood, Salazar was named a deputy in the 5 1000000-member outpost in 2004 by now-Saint John Paul Ii.

Initially assigned to the archdiocese's San Pedro Region (each of LA's five subdivisions being dwelling to roughly a million Catholics), in the late 2000s Salazar was quietly transferred to an office at the archdiocese's Wilshire Boulevard headquarters – a shift which today's move helps to explain in hindsight.

While, per custom, the Vatican made no reference to the rationale behind the early departure in its formal announcement, a argument from the LA Chancery released this morning says the following:

The announcement comes afterward Archbishop José H. Gomez requested a full review of all allegations of sexual misconduct involving minors to bring upward to date the 2004 Report to the People of God lists of accused priests. In a letter issued today to the faithful of the Archdiocese, Archbishop Gomez stated that he requested and received permission from the Congregation for Bishops at the Holy Encounter to take the Archdiocese's contained Clergy Misconduct Oversight Lath review a past allegation against Bishop Salazar of misconduct in the 1990s before he was ordained a bishop.

The Archdiocese was first informed in 2005 through a 3rd party of an accusation reported directly to constabulary enforcement in 2002 by a young adult alleging misconduct in the 1990s when Bishop Salazar was a priest and the alleged victim was a pocket-sized. Police force enforcement had investigated the allegation and recommended that the District Attorney seek prosecution. The District Attorney did not file charges in the example.

Cardinal Roger Mahony, who was Archbishop when the Archdiocese was informed of the allegation, requested an immediate review of the case with police enforcement officials. Since the affair involved a bishop of the Cosmic Church, according to the requirements of Catechism Law, he also reported the allegation to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Holy See. The Congregation investigated and permitted Bishop Salazar to remain in ministry bailiwick to certain precautionary conditions, which he has respected. Bishop Salazar has consistently denied the allegation. The Archdiocese has not received any other allegations involving Bishop Salazar.

Applying the standards used when reviewing allegations of sexual misconduct apropos priests and deacons, the Clergy Misconduct Oversight Board's review of the affair found the allegation to be credible and recommended to Archbishop Gomez that Bishop Salazar should not take faculties to minister. Archbishop Gomez accepted the recommendation and submitted it to the Holy Meet.

Given the revelation that CDF allowed Salazar to remain in conditional ministry building from 2005, hither it bears noting how, in the aforementioned year, the reins of the "Holy Office" were taken upwards by and then-Archbishop William Levada – an LA native and onetime auxiliary there.

At present 82 and retired from the Curia's #3 mail since 2012, Levada recently packed up his Roman apartment to return total-time to California, where he splits his time betwixt a condo in his hometown of Long Embankment and a residence at Menlo Park in the archdiocese of San Francisco, which he led for a decade until becoming the highest-ranking American in Vatican history.

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If the process just undertaken sounds fairly standard, to be clear, the path to this morning was annihilation but.

According to Whispers ops apprised of the instance, Salazar's resignation was start set up to exist accepted last Tuesday, 11 December. Withal, 2 factors complicated that timeframe and led to the week's delay: first, as opposed to a simple resignation, Gomez was driven to handle the allegation "the right mode" and – every bit broken here belatedly Sunday – wrangled the Holy See's permission for the LA review board to judge the claim last week. Every bit the Vatican must delegate the faculty to investigate the case of a bishop, that same procedure has been carried out twice this yr by the archdiocese of New York's lay console – the kickoff-ever instances in which a diocesan review board has been given the ability to weigh allegations confronting a prelate. (In practise, though, it's ostensibly become the rule that review boards may only consider allegations confronting bishops which took place when they were priests;in other words, the handling of whatever misconduct alleged following their date as bishops remains reserved to the holy see.)

Yet what'due south more than, in the days leading up to the initially-planned announcement, Salazar himself reportedly flew to the Nunciature in Washington with the intent of taking back the resignation he already submitted, and which Francis had already accepted.

As the 3 U.s.a. prelates previously removed since the crisis' June eruption were either virtually or past the retirement historic period of 75, this circular'due south offset move of its kind on a relatively younger bishop is notable. That Salazar'due south appointment took place in the immediate wake of 2002 – that is, in a time when scrutiny of potential bishops was understood to be considerably intensified – represents the most substantive hit to date to the integrity of the engagement procedure, to a higher place all as information technology stood in the last stage of John Paul's 27-yr pontificate. (Of class, that same period has come under fire in the case of Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, given the ex-cardinal's promotion to Washington in late 2000.)

On a broader sweep, Salazar becomes the third onetime LA auxiliary to be felled by scandal over the last two decades: in 1999, Bishop Patrick Ziemann was forced from the helm of Northern California'due south Santa Rosa diocese following accusations of sexual harassment by a priest at that place, likewise equally fiscal improprieties, while Bishop Gabino Zavala, named an Angeleno deputy in 1994 at age 43, resigned in early 2013 as he confessed to having fathered two children.

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Tomorrow marks six months since the crisis' second major eruption in the United states of america began with the removal of and then-Cardinal McCarrick from ministry following New York's finding that a 1970s allegation of abuse against the long-retired prelate was credible. A month after, later a 2d man'southward study that McCarrick driveling him every bit a male child, he became the offset cleric in a century to resign his place in the College of Cardinals. With the former archbishop of Washington already consigned to a life of prayer and penance at a monastery in Kansas, a full Roman tribunal on the allegations remains in process.

Over the long slog since, the Vatican forced the retirement of Bishop Michael Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston within days his 75th birthday in September upon claims of harassment of and misconduct with adults, and the New York auxiliary John Jenik, 74, agreed to "step aside" after Gotham's review board deemed every bit apparent an allegation from the 1980s involving a minor.

In the latter cases, what's become a sprawling investigation into Bransfield continues in West Virginia's statewide church building, while the Holy See remains to make a last determination on Jenik's intermission; set to accomplish the retirement age early in the New Year, the auxiliary has maintained his innocence.

Developing – more than to come.

SVILUPPO (10.45am ET): This piece will be updated as annihilation more comes from LA Chancery or other key entities – for now, from a firm source, an important and quite striking piece of the puzzle....

According to an op, 2005 CDF sanctions on ousted LA Aux +Salazar stipulated his removal from the public office of a regional bishop & his living/working "under supervision."

While Whispers has worked the story for a calendar month, this piece has only emerged at present: https://t.co/FpOJGZnLWF picture.twitter.com/9HBe3p9VJP

— Rocco Palmo (@roccopalmo) December 19, 2018

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Source: https://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2018/12/after-transatlantic-tug-of-war-la.html

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