Concerns About Federal Investigation of Archdiocese of Los Angeles

Cardinal Mahony is not one of my most favorites Cardinals. I view his tenor as being a disaster on several fronts. The sex abuse case was huge there and yes created scandal. Still the recent fact that a Federal Prosecutor is looking into the Archdiocese is puzzling. In fact it is person that has a Op-Ed in the LA Times called L.A. has more serious things to worry about than Billy and the cardinal

SO what is going on. He says in part:

So precisely what sort of investigation is O'Brien leading this grand jury through? (And make no mistake, federal grand juries indeed are "led" by the prosecutors who choose the witnesses and evidence put before them.) According to The Times' Scott Glover and Jack Leonard, he is trying to determine whether, by moving abusive priests from one assignment to another, archdiocesan officials -- presumably including the cardinal, although his lawyer says he's been told the prelate is not a "target" -- violated an obscure federal fraud statute that forbids using the mails or electronic communication to "scheme ... to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services." Congress wrote that provision to get at corrupt elected officials, though federal prosecutors since have extended it to corporate criminals like former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling.The cardinal has pronounced himself "mystified and puzzled by the whole thing."

Now, it takes a lot to mystify a guy formally trained in scholastic philosophy and canon law, not to mention doctrines like the trinity and transubstantiation. He's hardly alone, however. Legal scholars have called O'Brien's attempt to apply the honest services provision to this set of facts "novel" and "creative." That's legalese for a shot in the dark.

What's really going on here?So far, the grand jury has subpoenaed records on 22 former priests, two of whom are dead, according to sources at the U.S. attorney's office. All of the relevant information on their cases has been in the hands of county prosecutors for years. The legal acrimony between the D.A.'s office and the archdiocese over all this has been corrosive enough to eat through titanium alloy. If any sort of criminal obstruction had occurred, does anybody really think L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley wouldn't have prosecuted? And if the evidence is there and he didn't, why isn't he being investigated for failing to provide "honest services"?

Moreover, what exactly constitutes "honest services" on the part of a cardinal? Does O'Brien really believe that his office is competent to determine that? If so, we've got not only a novel legal theory on our hands but also a novel notion of separation of church and state. What we've really got is one of the most dangerous things our system throws up -- an overreaching prosecutor.

Honest Services?