Media Watch Alert

The Times' smoke obscures the facts


The Los Angeles Times tried to ignite a brush fire with its March 20 story accusing Cardinal Roger Mahony of providing the public and the Vatican with two very different descriptions of a videotape showing then-priest Lynn Caffoe with several young boys. As so often happens with Times' coverage, however, the fire's smoke obscured a number of pertinent facts.

First, we should point out that the actual videotape wasn't discovered until 1992, more than a year after the Cardinal had already removed Caffoe from ministry because of credible reports alleging misconduct with minors. Still, the Times story implies some kind of cover-up or deception by the Cardinal in the Caffoe case. It does this by comparing a one-sentence description of the video written and edited by lawyers and judges, respectively, as part of the civil suit mediation process to a personal and compelling letter the Cardinal wrote to the Vatican requesting that Caffoe be laicized because of the accusations against the priest.

Because we remain hopeful that if we repeat something over and over, the Times will eventually get it, we'd like once again to remind them of the purpose - the why and what - of those brief lawyerly descriptions, which are called "proffers." At the beginning of the mediation process, all parties agreed that, to avoid any delays that might be caused by challenges to the release of information in priests' confidential personnel files, the Church would provide a chronological index of certain important documents in those files, without disclosing specific content that could be challenged by the accused in court. All the files and documents were entrusted to the Court and reviewed by judges to determine that they were both complete and accurate.

In the case of the Caffoe videotape, lawyers who prepared the proffer read a memo from Caffoe's personnel file, describing a viewing of the tape, that stated there was no touching. The lawyers and the judges concluded after reading the memo that the tape contained no sexual activity (and, in fact, it didn't). Although some of the boys on the tape were reported to have removed their shirts, none had removed his pants or exposed himself in any way. Thus, the proffer described them as having been clothed.

The Cardinal's letter to the Vatican asking for Caffoe's laicization, which also relied on the memo's description, referred to the removed shirts as "partial nudity" and to the suggestive sexual comments on the tape as "criminal," a "delict" in the context of Church law. The Cardinal's letter to the Vatican was not quite so generous as that brief description in the proffer - but neither account was inaccurate.

The Times' attempt to harmonize two documents with completely different purposes is not only misleading, it is inconsequential to the fact of what happened: a priest was immediately removed from ministry after being credibly accused of sexual misconduct involving minors

Here are the most important facts:
  • Cardinal Mahony swiftly removed Caffoe from ministry after receiving credible reports of misconduct.
  • He sent Caffoe to a psychologist for an initial assessment.
  • The psychologist filed a Suspected Child Abuse Report, thus notifying law enforcement.
  • Cardinal Mahony barred Caffoe from further ministry. (A short time later, Caffoe disappeared from the Archdiocese without notice.)
  • Cardinal Mahony wrote to the Vatican seeking the removal of Caffoe from the priesthood and successfully persuading Pope Benedict XVI to approve this penalty in January 2006.