Don't Let Mahony Pick New Pope, Says Echo Park Attorney for Priest Victims

High-ranking Catholic officials from all over the world will begin deliberating Tuesday in Rome to decide who will replace Benedict XVI, the first pope to resign in 600 years.

Among those gathering in the Sistine Chapel will almost certainly be Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony.

Not everyone is pleased about that, including Echo Park attorney Art Goldberg and his client Jackie Dennis.

From 2003-2007, Goldberg represented Dennis and 12 other African-American women in a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Dennis and her fellow plaintiffs claimed they had been abused by Father G. Neville Rucker in the early 1970s at St. Agatha's parish school in West Adams.

The lawsuit ended in 2007 with a settlement of an undisclosed amount.

Goldberg and Dennis recently obtained documents that show as late as 1996 that Mahony was publicly praising Rucker, despite his certain awareness of lawsuits and potential criminal actions against the priest for molesting children, particularly in parishes in low income communities.

That is why they felt they should speak out before the papal enclave.

"Cardinal Mahony flies away to Rome as if nothing has been done, as if he never covered up for decades for one of the largest pedofiles of young girls who was moved by the church throughout Los Angles," Goldberg told us earlier this week.

"They should tell him that he would be arrested on sight if he attempts to take part in any enclave that attempts to pick a new pope," he added.

Goldberg, a family lawyer and activist, can be spotted most Fridays at the intersection of Echo Park Avenue and Sunset Boulevard demonstrating--mostly against the war.

Goldberg organized the class action lawsuit against Rucker in 2003, after Dennis told him her story of abuse at St. Agatha's.

Goldberg says he and the plaintiffs met regularly at his Echo Park home during the litigation.

Today Dennis lives in Claremont but she returned to Goldberg's Echo Park law office to share her views on Mahony and why he should not be allowed to participate in the enclave.

"Mahony said in 1993, 1996 he had no idea that Rucker's involvement with minor was an issue," said Dennis.

"There are statements he [Mahony] is making that are making me relive my trauma."

According to Archdiocese records, Father Rucker started his career at a Lincoln Heights parish, Sacred Heart, in the late 1940s. He spent May 1967 to January 1968 year at Echo Park's St. Teresa d'Avila parish. He was then moved to Atwater's Holy Trinity Catholic Church for most of 1968. 

He was transferred to several other churches, including St. Agatha's. He spent his final years living at Corpus Christi church in Pacific Palisades until his removal.

He is widely held as being the most flagrant of the priests in the Los Angeles Archdiocese charged in civil lawsuits by their abused victims.

Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly spelled Roger Mahony's last name, with an "e." We apologize for any inconvenience.