On Monday, the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles ponied up $660 million to settle claims its priests molested 508 kids over the last few decades. You can read elsewhere the countless, apocalyptic tales of priestly sex involving children, sodomy, oral copulation, kissing, petting, stalking and medieval torture. Those reports, which the church, after years of public-relations spin and courtroom denial, now accepts as fact, ought to have produced popular outrage, arrests, trials and convictions—perhaps in the 1960s, when they first emerged.

And that’s what bugs us. Why did it take a small band of attorneys and a civil judge to drive the church to justice? Where were the Los Angeles county supervisors and district attorney’s office? How about the myriad police departments throughout LA County? Our mayors and council members? Our city attorneys?
Where, in other words, were the officials whom citizens pay to protect them and their children from predators like those who plagued Catholic parishes throughout LA County?

Will Swaim put those questions to Orange County attorney John Manly, a partner in Manly, McGuire & Stewart (and, in the interests of full disclosure, an investor and advertiser in The District). Manly was one of the leading attorneys in the 2004 Orange County settlement, then the largest settlement in church history. In the LA case, he represented 50 clients.

He calls Monday’s multi-million-dollar settlement “reparations.”
“This was a crime against humanity, and especially against children,” Manly says. “It’s frightening to me that law enforcement takes this so lightly, that they’d wait for people like me to step up.”

How far back do the LA Archdiocese cases go?
I think there are one or two from the 1950s, but the majority of them date from the late 1960s to the 1990s.

And in 30 years or so, no official action against church officials? How does that happen?
For many years, LA was run by a network of Irish Catholics centered at the Jonathon Club and in Hancock Park. Cardinal [Roger] Mahoney, in a very Machiavellian way, embedded himself in those groups. I’m not making any judgments about the man, but [former LA mayor] Richard Riordan was a good friend of the cardinal. Mahoney made himself untouchable by integrating himself into these groups. He even used his relationship with Cesar Chavez and his work with farm workers as a young bishop in Fresno, used that capital to embed himself with LA’s Hispanic politicians.

Is the LA Archdiocese different from others in the U.S., different, say, from Boston or . . . ?
Totally different. In Boston and Philadelphia, there was an effort on the part of law enforcement—courts, judges, cops, prosecutors—to bring these perpetrators to justice. There’s been no similar effort in California cities to bring the Catholic hierarchy to justice.

And you think that’s because of the Mahoney strategy?
Sure. Throughout California, I think the California Catholic Conference and the individual bishops at the county level made a point to associate themselves with very powerful people. And they built up a tremendous amount of political capital that way.

Is there anywhere where this sort of thing is still going on?
Certainly in San Diego the church and politicians are so tied together that the DA [Bonnie Dumanis] has recused herself from all cases involving priests. She’s out of action. So there’s no elected official responsible to the voters there who can hold Catholic officials accountable. It’s left to the state attorney general, Jerry Brown to do something. He’s a former seminarian. And I don’t mean that as personal criticism; I don’t know him. But while he was mayor of Oakland he never said a word about this.

How about in Long Beach?
In Long Beach, we know that the sheriff’s department had contact with, among others, Kevin Barmassee. Father Barmassee was at St. Pancratius in Lakewood, and he was a serial molester in the early 1980s. When the parents of one of his victims complained in writing that Barmassee had raped their son, the police did nothing. When they wrote to church officials, the church hierarchy didn’t turn him over to police. They transferred Barmassee to Tucson, and then put him in charge of a parish youth group. In Arizona, he was dogged by complaints of his abuse. He would take these boys on trips to California. On one occasion, he brought a boy here to Long Beach and molested him. When the boy cried that he wanted to go home, Barmassee panicked and locked him on a boat in Long Beach Harbor for hours. It’s my opinion that the kid’s lucky to be alive. Barmassee feared the kid was going to disclose everything.

There are a few apparent crimes in there. And today?
Barmassee was defrocked in 1992, but legal action? No. Nothing. He lives in Westlake—in an apartment that looks out over a cul de sac where kids play and ride their bikes. Mahoney told CNN that he got reports twice a year from Barmassee’s psychiatrists in Tucson. But no one warned the people living in Barmassee’s parishes or in Tucson that Barmassee had attacked kids in Long Beach. At no point was there a serious effort to prosecute any of these people—not just Barmassee but the people involved in the subsequent cover-up. There has been no inquiry.

Can you give me an example of where ordinary cops and priests might build the relationships that lead to these kinds of compromises?
I’ll give you another example. Every year the archbishop holds what’s called Red Mass, a special Mass for the legal community and law enforcement. And every year, since I’ve been watching, the DA, the chief of police, Sheriff Baca, the mayor, numerous city council members and judges have attended that service. Let me tell you why I think that’s significant. It creates a special understanding between law enforcement and the church. Until 2002, when a priest was arrested for anything, the police would call the police chaplain, who would call the archdiocese and the cover-up would swing into action. The goal was to avoid any publicity at all costs.

What do you want to say to officials who attend the Red Mass?
I guess my comment to all these people would be, “This is not about religion. It’s about right and wrong.” When [mob boss] John Gotti threw parties, I don’t think Rudy Giuliani was attending. And I think they should be using their positions to call for Mahoney to resign. There should be a groundswell for the DA [Steve Cooley] to dig into this case.

You backed Cooley in 2002.
I did. I gave him money. I thought he was serious, but I’ve been very disappointed. He should not only be prosecuting but speaking out on issues when he believes someone has committed a crime—even when statute has run out. This should not be the job of a small OC law firm.

Have you talked with the DA’s office about these cases?
Listen: I believe there are good people in the DA’s office. But I believe that, higher up, there’s been a decision to go slow or not go at all—not to prosecute. They’re happy to take down priests who come forward, but in terms of going after people, of interviewing victims, the only people taking action are civil judges and civil lawyers. And I don’t understand. I feel like myself and my clients are really on our own. We’re spending our own time and our own money—our lives—to right this wrong.

Tags: catholic sex scandal, la archdiocese, priest abuse