Here in Lodi, CA. we pay a bit more attention than most to Roger Cardinal Mahony and the sex abuse cases that he covered up for decades. The reason is simple: pedophile priest Oliver O’Grady raped and molested children in the Stockton-Lodi area while Mahony was Bishop of the Stockton Diocese from 1980 to 1985.

In this morning’s Lodi News-Sentinel, local attorney Larry Drivon, a specialist in clergy abuse cases, said:

”If Roger Mahony had dialed three simple numbers in 1982 or 1984, none of this would come to pass. Those three numbers are 9-1-1.”

Drivon noted that while Mahony issued plenty of apologies this weekend, none of them were for his own complicity.[Attorney: Mahony’s Apology Shallow, By Ross Farrow, Lodi News-Sentinel, July 16, 2007]