Anger as US cardinal accused of covering up church abuse given ceremonial honor of closing Pope Francis’s coffin

Advocates for victims of church abuse have hit out after it emerged a disgraced U.S. cardinal is to help close and seal Pope Francis’ casket ahead of his funeral Saturday.

Cardinal Roger Mahony, 89, was selected by the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations to be one of nine clergymen to be present at the ceremonial Rite of Sealing of the Coffin on Friday in St Peter’s Basilica. Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 to 2011, will also oversee the pope’s interment at Rome’s Basilica of Saint Mary Major following the service in St. Peter’s Square this weekend, the Vatican announced.

The cardinal was stripped of his administrative and public duties with immediate effect in January 2013 by his successor, Archbishop of Los Angeles Jose Gomez, after he was accused of shielding priests embroiled in a child sex abuse scandal between the 1980s and 1990s to protect the Catholic Church.

Making the announcement in 2013, Gomez said Mahony had “expressed his sorrow for his failure to fully protect young people entrusted to his care”.

However Mahony, who is among the oldest and longest-serving cardinal priests in the College of Cardinals, denied any wrongdoing and weeks after his removal Gomez maintained that he remained a “priest in good standing” with the Catholic Church.

The Los Angeles archdiocese said on Thursday that Gomez’s first statement had been “misinterpreted” at the time.

“We are blessed to have Cardinal Mahony represent our Archdiocese in Rome for the funeral of our Holy Father,” said the statement. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni added that the cardinals involved in the ceremony were determined by their length of tenure.

Those supporting the survivors of clergy abuse have criticized the Vatican’s decision to select the cardinal for the ceremonial honor.

“Shame on him for participating in the public rites for Pope Francis, and shame on the College of Cardinals for allowing him to do so,” Anne Barrett Doyle of the group Bishop Accountability, which has tracked Catholic clergy abuse for decades, told Reuters.

Mahony traveled to the Vatican this week to pay his last respects to the late pontiff, who passed away on Monday, who suffered a stroke and heart failure a day after appearing at Easter Sunday mass in St Peter’s Square.

The cardinal said that though he didn’t know Francis very well before he was elected pope, they had become closer in recent years and would write to each other regularly.

“He encouraged us to write to him,” Mahony told ABC 7 Eyewitness News. “I have—I don’t know the final number—over 30 letters back from the pope, Pope Francis.”

In 2013, the release of Church files related to a lawsuit suggested Mahony and another official had shielded several accused priests in the 1980s by sending them for treatment to psychiatrists known as friendly to the Church.

Mahony apologized after the release of the files “for my own failure to protect fully the children and youth entrusted into my care.” But he said many Catholic officials did not understand how to handle clergy suspected of abuse at the time.

The Los Angeles Archdiocese paid over $660 million to settle clergy abuse claims against 508 victims during Mahony’s tenure. The LA archdiocese has paid out over $1.5 billion in total to more than 1,300 victims in various settlements.