The L.A. Times does Longform on a topic that actually matters

On the local Archbishop's struggles to properly deal with the priest abuse scandal.

http://graphics.latimes.com/mahony/

Slightly more worth your time than Tim freaking Tebow.

 

Why?

 

"Thank you much," the falsely modest longform writer said repeatedly on Twitter afterward.

 

Is it worth more of time than a feature on Daniel Chase's girlfriend?

 

This was an excellent overview and good information on the whole issue -- just a good read.

I don't ask this as a sympathizer. I wonder, though, what difference this report will make to the actual problem?

Despite Mahoney's efforts to keep the issue from becoming public, I wonder if anyone else really would have handled it any differently? Is anyone else actually handling it any differently, even now? Something tells me the issue hasn't just gone away just because Mahoney is no longer the archbishop of Los Angeles. I wonder what his successor is thinking/doing about it all.

I guess I don't really see Mahoney as the problem. He was just the one stuck with the problem, and was at a loss as to what to really do about it, given its apparent scope, which I don't think anyone could have been prepared for.

Would changing church tradition and policies by allowing regular sexual relations, marriage and families to priests to be sanctioned and widely accepted do anything to alleviate the apparent tendency toward child molestation that seems to exist?

I don't know. What really is the root cause? I would have liked to see more of these issues dealt with in the series.

 

No dead Irish writers invoked. Check.