The Perfect Birthday...

...because growing up in Los Angeles in the 1960s, I heard this every Monday through Friday during Sheriff John's Lunch Brigade until I started first grade. And, since I had the record, a whole lot more times until I wore it out.

Scheduled to post on the 56th minute of St. Patrick's Day, Pacific Standard Time.

A Bad Day for L.A. Media: RIP Gary Owens

And as soon as I finish one post, another familiar name shows up "trending" on Facebook. Gary Owens died yesterday at the age of 80. Most famous, perhaps, as the announcer from "Beautiful Downtown Burbank" on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and still heard as the voice of Antenna TV, Garish had the 3-6 pm shift on KMPC 710, the radio station I listened to the most growing up.

"The Nurny Song" (not only sung by the "staff" singers, but by just about every recording artist of the '60s and '70s, including The Carpenters and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir); the words "insegrevious," "fnork," and "krelb;" an autographed picture of the Harbor Freeway; Krellman; Earl C. Festoon; the "Gary Owens Rumor of the Day;" "The Story Lady" (nearly 300 episodes are currently available at that link); speaking to or of "Wayne Doo" (KMPC engineer Wayne DuBois); and the Zookmeister Broadcasting System. Good music, news and traffic reports, and plenty of promotions with Dick Enberg, announcer for the (then) California Angels -- KMPC and the Angels were both owned by Gene Autry, who also owned KTLA channel 5. Ending a finance company commercial with, "and there are 29 offices within the sound of my voice. And now," speaking much louder, "there are 57 offices within the sound of my voice."

Yet in all that non-stop zaniness, he was also a consummate professional. Here's an aircheck, unfortunately it begins a bit wobbly, from his Sept 17, 1970, KMPC broadcast. (Note that in air checks the middle of songs and commercials are frequently cut out.) Oh, the memories this brings to me!



Stan Chambers, Gary Owens... I hope I'm not back in a krenellemuffin.

RIP: L.A.'s TV Reporter Stan Chambers

On a Friday afternoon in the spring of 1949, 3½-year-old Kathy Fiscus fell into an abandoned well in San Marino, California, and a rescue attempt was begun. Newspapers and radio stations covered as an anxious city (and eventually the nation) followed the story. At some point during the rescue, someone at KTLA Channel 5, the first commerically licensed TV station in the western US, thought to send a camera crew. And for 27½ hours, Stan Chambers stood before and beside the camera telling viewers -- this was the early days of television, so perhaps 20,000 people were able to watch at home -- what they were watching on their screens, including the sad news that Kathy had died long before her rescuers reached her. This was the first on-the-scene live TV coverage of a breaking news story. It would not be the last, for television or for Stan Chambers. Sales of televisions skyrocketed.

While it would be several years before KTLA had a regular news broadcast, they'd broadcast special news events live and Stan Chambers was usually the guy on screen reporting. The testing of an atom bomb in Nevada. Brush fires all across the Southland. Floods, earthquakes, riots. He covered the assissination of Bobby Kennedy and broke the story beating of Rodney King. And Stan reported good news, too, not the least of which was the Rose Parade (which, if you cannot be there in person, is still best watched on KTLA [Thank God for the internet!]). I saw him report hundreds of stories on Channel 5's News at 10 living in LA. And he continued this until he retired in 2010 at the age of 87, after 63 years at KTLA and in the homes of Angelenos.

A little while ago, "Stan Chambers" started appearing on the "trending" portion of my Facebook page, dying today at the age of 91. A true television pioneer. RIP, Stan Chambers. Here's one of KTLA's tributes.

Geoff Edwards: Thanks for the Good Times

Geoff Edwards, the mid-morning DJ on KMPC Los Angeles from 1968-1979, has died.

Apparently I'm at the age where I'm going to hear this more-and-more of those people who I never met or knew but were, nonetheless, part of my every-day life growing up. While the national news is focussing on his game show hosting, the LA Times's obituary hit exactly what popped into my mind when I heard the news this morning on the radio:

On radio, he was a clever talker who sprinkled music and news with homegrown bits like "The Answer Lady." That was simply Edwards answering listeners' questions, often comically, without even pretending to imitate a female voice.

Listeners called 520-8600 (Can you believe I remember the KMPC phone number?), Geoff'd say in his normal voice "Answer Lady," a question was asked (it could be about anything), he toss off a quick one-line answer and immediately push the next button on the phone, saying, "Answer Lady," and doing this bit quick-boom-boom for 3-5 minutes. Alas, you don't hear this kind of radio any more.

Edwards probably received more noteriety for his game show hosting and he was, for many years, the announcer for the California Lottery's The Big Spin. Perhaps the biggest moments of his career was when he was reporting on the events following President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas for KHJ/Mutual, including being at the scene when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. A good retrospective of his career, including how he came to be in Dallas that day, appears right now on the front page of Don Barrett's LARadio.com, the place to remember over 6000 "LA Radio People".

While I remember him best from KMPC, it turns out Geoff was the morning man at KFI just prior to Lohman and Barkley -- which means I would have listened to him every morning when I first got my own radio for my bedroom. While they were indeed brilliant, Lohman and Barkley didn't do a whole lot for me when I was 9-10 years old, and I switched to KMPC. Of course, with a 9-Noon shift, I only got to hear him in the summertime.

You can listen to an air check of the 11 o'clock hour Geoff Edwards on KMPC from November 13, 1978. The first half,
and the second half,
.
No "Answer Lady" here -- she usually happened during the 10 o'clock hour -- but it's a good taste of the old full service AM radio that, alas, no longer exists. FWIW, it does run a wee bit slow, but that's noticeable mainly if you remember what he sounded like on the air.

Oh, cool!! One of Geoff's most famous radio bits, Mr. Kent calling the dry cleaners to see if his stuff (dropped off earlier by Miss Lane) is ready, appears on his web site.

Besides the Times' obit, there's this from the Hollywood Reporter (hey, local sources are best) and his Facebook page, which has some wonderful photos. I think he enjoyed a good life. I'm glad he was a part of mine. Requiescat in pace.

Retrospect: The End of an Era

A very cool video entitled Ride The Last Red Car Los Angeles April 1961.


Personally, I don't think they needed to add all that newer footage of the motorman operating the Red Car. But still, seeing the city from a perspective I am just a wee bit too young to remember...

Ray Bradbury Turns 90

Ray Bradbury, whose 90^th birthday is this Sunday, reveals his "secret of living a fulfilled life" as part of an interview posted on UCLA's birthday tribute to the treasured American writer.



Look here for details on some of the events for "Ray Bradbury Week" in the City of Angels.

The Voice of Heaven

It was brutal, last night's 11-0 Dodger loss to the Phillies.

I was listening to the Dodger feed on my XM Satellite Radio. For the playoffs, the Dodger Network is taking a page from history. You see, during the season the principal Dodgers announcers are Charley Steiner and Rick Monday. They share the announcers' booth beginning in the 4th inning of all games, and for most road games they broadcast the entire game.

THE Dodger announcer is, of course, Vin Scully, who's been at a Dodger mic since the 1950 season. At home and West Coast games, he broadcasts the first 3 innings on radio, then heads over to the TV booth. But in this post-season, we get to go back (in a sense) to the old days, when Scully had the mic solo for most of the game, with Jerry Doggett giving him respite for a couple of innings each game. For this post-season the Dodger feed is Vinnie for innings 1-3 and 7-9. It makes all the difference.

Growing up, Vin Scully's voice was in the background whenever Grandpa Hutchinson was around (his house or ours) and the Dodger game was on. His voice echoed throughout Dodger Stadium as fans brought our transistor radios and tuned to KFI to listen to him describe the game we were watching. Just a couple of years ago, as I was driving on a September Sunday afternoon, I marvelled as Scully kept his listeners entertained as a batter fouled off something like 15 pitches in a row.

Last night, as the Dodgers were receiving a royal shellacking, Vin Scully told it straight. No whining like the more "homer" announcers we have here in the mid-west. No harsh criticism of "bad decisions" by Joe Torre, his coaches, or players. Oh, there was no doubt as you listened just how badly the game was going for Los Angeles and how they weren't executing the way the team with the best record in the National League ought to be executing. But the story is the game, and Vin is a master storyteller, bringing in all sorts of background -- one story was of when the "Whiz-Kid" Phils beat the Dodgers in a one-game playoff to make the World Series, and he didn't need to mention that it was 1950 and that he was there in the booth -- to put it all in the proper context. Baseball's a game. A wonderful game, even when things aren't going well for your team.

Sadly, the 2010 season will be his last. Then no more will a ball game begin, "Hi everybody, and a very pleasant evening to you, wherever you may be."

There's a Facebook group called "Vin Scully - The Voice of God." That's not quite right. Vinnie doesn't speak and things come into being. Rather he describes what's happening, and you are there and you understand what's going on in ways that never would have come to mind. When Scully's announcing the world is right. Evan when the game is brutal. Vin Scully - The Voice of Heaven.

LA Train Wreck

Yes, I am familiar with the area of this afternoon's crash of a commuter and freight train in Chatsworth. When I still lived in Canoga Park, I would sometime stop near the 180° curve where Old Santa Susana Pass went over the railroad track to watch a Southern Pacific train go by as I was coming home from work in Northridge. (Hey, boys like to watch trains! In those days there was no passenger traffic on that road.) It looks like the collision was about 1000-1500 feet east of that point, as a northbound train would be curving to the east. It looks horrific. Prayers for those on the trains and for the rescue workers.

The West Is Won!!!

Guess who just won the American League West for the fourth time in the last five years?










The other Los Angeles baseball team isn't doing too badly, either.

O'Malley Strikes Again

Go Maury, Go Maury, Go, Go, Go!..
oh he goes, the catcher throws, right from the solar plexis,
at the bag he beats the tag that mighty little waif,
and umpire Conlan cries "Yer out!"
Out?
Out?
Down in the dugout Alston glowers,
up in the booth Vin Scully frowns,
out in the stands O'Malley grins,
attendance fifty thousand!

From The D-O-D-G-E-R-S Song, recorded by Danny Kaye, 1962

50 years ago Walter O'Malley moved the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles and Major League Baseball hasn't been the same since. Today, he was elected to the Baseball Hall-of-Fame by its Veterans Committee, along with 4 others. Most notable about this class is that none of them are in the Hall for their performance as players of the game. Billy Southworth and Dick Williams are in for their careers as managers and Barney Dreyfuss (the creator of the World Series), like O'Malley, is in as an extra-ordinary owner.

The other person elected is former Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. It seems fitting that Kuhn would be elected at the same time as O'Malley for, as legendary LA sportscaster Jim Healy regularly noted, in those days, the Commissioner never said anything important when the Dodgers' owner was in the room because everyone would see that O'Malley's lips were moving. So you might say O'Malley is the first guy ever to be elected twice, on the same day, to the Baseball Hall-of-Fame. ;->

Meanwhile, among the celebrations marking the Dodgers' 50th Anniversary in Los Angeles will be an exihibition game next March 29 against the World Champion Boston Red Sox at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum! Ah, yes. Mom and Dad would talk about attending a Dodger game at the Coliseum. Turned out their seats were out in right field where all they could see was Frank Howard.

Yup. O'Malley grins...

Fair weather strikes again

You know that I am a Los Angeles Angels fan -- it not only goes back to some of my earliest blog entries, my first baseball cap -- I can't remember a time before I had it, so I must've been 3 when I first got it -- was from the original expansion Angels, blue with a red bill and intertwined "LA," and the cool silver/white halo on top. (Please, Mr Moreno, please!!!) Jimmy Fregosi, Bobby Knoop, Rick Reichardt, Bob (later "Buck") Rodgers, Jay Johnstone, Aurelio Rodriguez, Roger Repoz, Dean Chance, Bill Rigney (hmm, lots of Rs), those are my guys.

But an afternoon at Grandma-and-Grandpa's often had Vin Scully describing the Dodger game in the background, "brought to you by Farmer John Hot Dogs, proud sponsor of the Dodgers" and maker of the world famous Dodger Dogs®. My first professional baseball games were at Dodger Stadium where, my Angels cap long-disappeared (and too small anyway), I bought a Dodger cap with my very own money when I was 10. I still have it.

In 1988 we were sitting in the lounge of PLTS' Beasom Hall watching the first game of the World Series. The whole world knew that the Oakland A's were going to win that Series, and in Berkeley everyone's an A's fan. Except the Angel fan from LA, watching because he likes watching baseball (though he has no dog in this particular game) and the company. And then, Kirk Gibson comes to bat as a pinch hitter. (Go ahead, read it, for the author's got it just right.) For when the crippled former Tiger put that ball over the fence, well, Tibbetts is an LA boy and the Dodgers are the home town team. Everybody was shocked. One was overjoyed.

Okay, I'm a fair weather Dodger fan. And, yes, I'll always have a longing for anything that reminds me of home. But who'da thunk 2 weeks ago that the Los Angeles Dodgers, a once-proud franchise that has been in chaos since O'Malley sold out to Murdoch and Lasorda had to retire, would now be managed by Joe Torre.

It's time to get a new Dodger cap. And 2, not just one, bobbleheads.

The Dodgers: 50 years in Los Angeles!

50 years ago today, the Dodgers announced they were moving to Los Angeles.

I know: I've not even been alive that long. I was 6 1/2 months old when the Dodgers defeated the White Sox in the '59 World Series. It was their second season in LA, and the Brooklyn crew Roger Kahn would later dub The Boys of Summer had passed their prime. I've never even been a big Dodger fan, though I always enjoyed going to Dodger Stadium, and no one announces a game like Vin Scully (who a few weeks ago kept me entranced listening on the radio as a batter fouled off some 15 pitches in a row).

But I'm an Angeleno, and even to Angels fans, the Dodgers are a part of the background of life. And the background really is important. And yesterday and today, the Los Angeles Times published a nice 2-part series, "50 YEARS AGO: FROM BROOKLYN TO LOS ANGELES." Part 1 is, at least on the web site, found in "business news":

L.A.'s major league play: Dodgers' 50 years in Los Angeles

Fifty years ago, L.A. City Council voted to provide Walter O'Malley with 300-plus acres in Chavez Ravine. The rest is baseball history.

All of 22 years old and fresh out of USC, Rosalind Wiener was looking for ways to attract voters in her bid for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council.

She had 35,000 cards printed up enumerating the standard election promises: strengthen drug laws, improve the economy, eliminate government waste and provide adequate public transportation.

But she needed one more item. Something different. Something original.

Well, her family had always been huge baseball fans, so why not?

Wiener's final item: Bring major league baseball to Los Angeles.

The year was 1953.

"I didn't know about minor league rights," she said. "I didn't know you had to get a vote of the owners. I thought, you just said to somebody, 'Come visit. Come to L.A.' I didn't know how complicated it would be to bring a team here."

Complicated, but not impossible, as Wiener, who married and became Rosalind Wyman, discovered after winning a council seat.

Professional baseball in Los Angeles in those days consisted of two Pacific Coast League teams, the Los Angeles Angels and the Hollywood Stars.

On the other side of the continent, the Dodgers seemed entrenched in Brooklyn, where they had been since their inception in 1890 as the Bridegrooms.

As the Trolley Dodgers and then, simply, the Dodgers, they became the soul of their community and "America's Team" long before the Dallas Cowboys were tabbed with that distinction.

But by 1953, Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley had been exploring alternatives for aging Ebbets Field for seven years. Back in 1946, as a minority owner, O'Malley sent a letter to engineer Emil Prager in which O'Malley said, "Your fertile imagination should have some ideas about enlarging or replacing our present stadium."

O'Malley's imagination was running wild by the 1950s. Having taken over majority ownership of the team, he envisioned building a domed stadium, a concept that seemed inconceivable for baseball at the time, more than a decade before the Astrodome was constructed in Houston.

O'Malley had selected a site at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush, a couple of long fly balls from Ebbets Field. The property contained a soon-to-be-abandoned meat market and was located at a hub of the New York transportation system that would bring in the Manhattan crowds via subway and those living in the suburbs via the Long Island Rail Road.

There was no question Ebbets Field, built in 1913, its foundation decaying, its opportunities for expansion nonexistent because of the surrounding neighborhood, had to be replaced.

Also in 1953, a seemingly unrelated event back in L.A. would push Wyman's dream one step closer to reality.

Three years earlier, a letter had gone out from the Los Angeles Housing Authority to residents living on more than 300 acres of steep rolling hills near downtown known as Chavez Ravine. It informed them a public housing development for low-income families was to be built on their property, which they would be forced to sell at fair market value under eminent domain. The residents would be given the first opportunity to buy into the new project, to be known as Elysian Park Heights, or would be given public assistance in finding other homes.

"The Dodgers had nothing whatsoever to do with the moving of people out of Chavez Ravine," Wyman said.

With the process underway and families being bought out, the project came to a screeching halt in 1953 with the election of Norris Poulson as Los Angeles mayor. A vehement opponent of public housing, he was the key figure in the killing of the project.

Read it all here. Part 2 is in "sports":

Dodgers' fans were Flatbush-whacked

Losing their beloved 'Bums' seemed inconceivable to Brooklynites. When the team left, a borough's collective heart was broken, and those who were there can still recall the pain.

The Dodgers leaving Brooklyn?

It was as inconceivable as the Notre Dame Fighting Irish leaving South Bend, Ind., the Packers leaving Green Bay or the Statue of Liberty being moved to Lake Michigan.

Yes, Brooklynites understood Ebbets Field was decaying and knew owner Walter O'Malley was frustrated by his inability to get New York city commissioner Robert Moses to approve O'Malley's plan for a new stadium. They had heard the rumors about Los Angeles.

And yet when conjecture became reality, it hit everyone hard, from fans on the street and in the seats to team personnel on the field and in the front office.

The resulting emotion is expressed in the memories that follow of those tumultuous times for a borough and its team:

Buzzie Bavasi, former Dodgers general manager: "Walter's attitude was, 'If it's 30 miles from Brooklyn, it might as well be 3,000 miles.' Flushing Meadows was not Brooklyn."

Billy DeLury, who has served in the Dodgers organization for over half a century: "It just wasn't fair. If I want to build a house and this is where I want to build it and someone says, 'You don't build a house unless I tell you where to build it,' I don't think that's right. And that's what happened with the ballpark.

"Would you have to change the name to the Flushing Dodgers? I really, truly think Moses thought we would never leave."

Bavasi: "None of us blame Walter because we realized Ebbets Field needed a lot of work. My sister's father-in-law was the fire commissioner for Brooklyn. He could have condemned Ebbets Field, but because of his relationship with me, he told me to just do a few maintenance things and it would be all right. But even with that, it cost us plenty of money because we had to do a lot of work. To get it into condition where it would have been approved by the city would have cost us millions and we didn't have the millions at that time."

Financial details, however, were not the main concern of Brooklyn fans.

Boxing promoter Bob Arum, who grew up in that borough: "When I think of Brooklyn, the only thing that really mattered was baseball. Ebbets Field was less than a mile from where I lived. It was 25 cents for the bleachers. They used to play a lot of doubleheaders, so our mothers packed lunches because we would be there for eight hours.

"The players lived in the area you lived. [Manager] Charlie Dressen lived a few blocks away. You'd see the players in restaurants. There was a pitcher, Freddie Fitzsimmons, who had a bowling alley. It was really more than just a team."

TV host Larry King, another Brooklyn native: "I still remember the aroma of Ebbets Field. I was at Jackie Robinson's first game. Sat in the bleachers. It was a scene I'll never forget. The bleachers were the best because they were so close.

"The Dodgers were the symbol of Brooklyn. They gave us an identity, set us apart from Manhattan and Queens. When you lived in Brooklyn, everything else was Tokyo."

Joan Hodges, the 81-year-old widow of Gil, the Dodgers first baseman: "My parents came from Italy and didn't know a baseball from an onion. But by the time Gil was managing the Mets, my mother would ask him: 'How come you take so long to take the pitcher out?' "

Current Dodgers announcer Charley Steiner, another native New Yorker: "Brooklyn was a conclave of immigrants of every nationality and religion: German, Polish, Russian, Irish, Italian, Catholic, Jewish. Our grandparents had a funny accent because they were from the old country, but the one thing they all had in common was the Dodgers. That was Brooklyn."

But as the 1950s wore on, that was changing.

Arum: "Many families were moving to the Long Island suburbs like my folks did because they could afford it and it offered a better quality of life. It had nothing to do with racism. It was less cramped and you could own your own home out there.

"Unlike Californians, those people were not acclimated to vehicles. They had no desire to drive back into the city, so O'Malley needed a stadium that was close to public transportation."

When he couldn't convince Moses to sign off on his dream stadium, O'Malley pushed ahead in negotiations with L.A. officials.

Read it all here. And the sidebars, of both articles, too. Kudos to writer Steve Springer. And the Times.

Oh, and this is interesting. The tired and beat-up Ebbets Field was 45-years-old when O'Malley moved out of it. Now, apart from Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, and the (largely rebuilt) Yankee Stadium, Dodger Stadium is the oldest park in the Major Leagues. 45-years-old. And still a jewell.

But there is good news...

In our home while growing up, on the davenport lamp table by the front door we kept, during the baseball season, bobbleheads of the Dodgers and Angels. And, as taught by Grandpa Hutchinson, when the team won a game the doll looked out, while when they lost, the doll turned away in shame.

Well, in my youth we saw the back of the Angel more often than not. But, even though they lost this evening, the Angel faces you now for -- the Los Angeles Angels have won their third American League Western Division pennant in four years.

And that's something to celebrate!

Oh. How about this World Series: the Angels and the Cubs???

The Long Lent Explodes in Los Angeles

I've been home the last week for my 30-year high school reunion.

The headline in Sunday's (Los Angeles) Daily News:

Sins of the fathers to cost church $660 million

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles will pay a historic $660 million to more than 500 victims who were abused by clergy during the past 70 years, sources said late Saturday.

In what would be the largest payout in the church's sex-abuse scandal, sources close to the archdiocese and a lawyer for the victims said Saturday that terms of a settlement are being worked out this weekend. If the agreement holds, each victim would receive between $1.2 million and $1.3 million.

The news came just two days before the first of more than 500 clergy abuse cases is scheduled for trial jury selection Monday.

Ray Boucher, attorney and negotiator for the victims, confirmed late Saturday that a settlement had been reached, but he declined to provide specifics.

He said a news release will be issued today (Sunday) about the formal announcement of the settlement, which will take place on Monday morning.

A source close to the archdiocese confirmed to the Daily News that an agreement had been reached but said details and legal language were still being hammered out.

Read it all here.

This has been the story in LA ever since. The Daily News' front page on Monday and Tuesday remained focussed on this $660 million settlement. Monday:

Mahony's mea culpa
Cardinal offers apologies to sexual-abuse victims; claimants doubt sincerity

Calling sexual abuse by clergy a "terrible sin and crime," Cardinal Roger Mahony apologized Sunday to hundreds of people who claim they were molested by priests in the nation's largest archdiocese.

The apology came during a news conference following Sunday Mass and a day after the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay a record $660 million in a settlement with 508 victims.

"There really is no way to go back and give them that innocence that was taken from them," Mahony said. "The one thing I wish I could give the victims ... I cannot.

"Once again, I apologize to anyone who has been offended, who has been abused. It should not have happened and it will not happen again."

Mahony said he has met with dozens of victims of clergy abuse in the past 14 months and those meetings helped him understand the importance of a quick resolution to the lawsuits.

The cardinal is scheduled to be in court this morning to go over the final settlement. He said the church's decision to settle on the eve of the trials - which were set to begin today - had nothing to do with keeping him from testifying.

Read it all here.

We're reading notes from an interview with Cardinal Mahoney (which apparently upset His Eminence), stories about victims, and questions about the Cardinal's future. That last links concludes ominously:

Meanwhile, with the civil case now settled, it appears a criminal case isn't out of the question. Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley issued a statement Monday afternoon making that clear.

"Today's massive civil settlement highlights the institutional moral failure of the archdiocese to supervise predatory priests who operated for years under its jurisdiction," he said.

Regarding confidential documents that could be released as a result of Monday's settlement, Cooley said, "If these documents reveal evidence of criminal activity on behalf of individual priests or anyone else, we will pursue them.

"The book is not closed on our investigation."

I can hardly wait to see tomorrow morning's paper.

Meanwhile, LA's talk radio is blistering the Cardinal Archbishop, at least on KFI (where John and Ken seem to have nothing good to say about the Church) and KABC (where the usually common sense Larry Elder is beside himself over Cardinal Mahoney still having a job).

What the people of Los Angeles are not hearing or reading about is the outrage among faithful Catholics that dates to the beginning of the sexual abuse scandal, which blew open in January 2002 in Boston and then spread across the nation. Fr. Richard John Neuhaus of First Things was calling this the "Long Lent" back in 2002. At one point he wrote:

I have said it before: we have probably not yet felt the full fury of the storm aroused by the grave misgovernment of the Catholic Church in America. I do not want to write about this, and I wouldn’t blame you if you do not want to read about it. Since all this broke in January, I have given no less than thirty hours per week to the subject, talking with endless reporters, and doing radio interviews. (I’ve been turning down as many as half a dozen television interviews per day, because they take so much time in traveling to studios, and mainly because most of them provide an opportunity for no more than a few sound bites and a food fight.) Please, I’m not whining. It is just to say I’m weary of the subject, but recognize the probability that it will not let us go.

For weeks now, the media have been in a feeding frenzy. I do not say that in criticism of the media. Let it be stated unambiguously: the leaders of the Catholic Church, meaning mainly the bishops, are responsible for the crisis and for the consequent frenzy. Of course some reporting is sensationalistic, and of course it is amusing to see the New York Times, day after day, running essentially the same story on the front page, as though they’re afraid people are going to forget about it. But, regrettably, there are also new developments, and no doubt will be more, that legitimate the major attention paid.

There is this difference: for the first time in years, I have the impression that most journalists are really trying to understand what is happening, or at least to find a story line that makes sense of what is happening. In other words, the story doesn’t conveniently fall into the conventional left/right, liberal/conservative boxes on which reporters usually depend. Recall that the story started out as a “pedophilia” scandal. The story has rightly moved beyond that now. The scandal is only very marginally about pedophilia. With very few exceptions, it is about adult men having sexual relations with adolescent and older teenage boys. So everybody has by now heard a great deal about “ephebophilia.” It is not necessary, however, that we learn a new vocabulary. There’s a perfectly good old fashioned word for same-sex sex. Homosexuality is very close to the center of the crisis. At the epicenter is the grave negligence of bishops. Not all bishops, to be sure, but too many. And, as in the case of Palm Beach, Florida, not only grave negligence but active complicity. Two months ago a lawyer and friend of the Church told me that before this is over we will see a bishop or two in jail. I thought that hyperbolic. Now I am not so sure.

That was in June 2002. In May 2004, Fr. Neuhaus wrote about "The Catholic Reform:

The cover of the 150-page report of the National Review Board (NRB) is deep purple, the color of Lenten penitence, which is just right for this telling moment in the Long Lent that began with the Boston exposures of January 2002. It is titled “A Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States.” Not the “Sex Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church” but the “Crisis in the Catholic Church.” Long before there was a sex abuse crisis, there was a spiritual crisis, a moral crisis, a doctrinal crisis, and a crisis of misgovernance in the Catholic Church in the United States. All these crises finally come down to what the bishops did and did not do, what the bishops have and have not been doing for decades. The report is about priestly perpetrators and their victims; it is about seminaries and spiritual formation; it is about lawyers and the compromising of the Church’s independence. But, mainly and most importantly, the report is about bishops.

When, in their panicked Dallas meeting of 2002, the bishops created a National Review Board of prominent Catholic laity, I was opposed to the idea. I said and wrote that the bishops should take the heat and the responsibility for what had happened. I thought it was a dangerous precedent to have lay episcopoi of the episcopoi, overseers of the episcopal overseers; that it would play into the hands of dissenting Catholics who challenge what, in Catholic teaching, is the divinely constituted structure of the Church governed by bishops who are successors to the apostles. I hoped the bishops would devise some means—perhaps a plenary council or a long collegial retreat—to honestly examine what had gone wrong and come up with a believable program for reform. I was wrong. It is now apparent that the bishops as a body, meaning the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), were incapable of doing what the National Review Board has done. It is inconceivable that the bishops and bureaucracy of the USCCB could have produced the forthright analysis and program of reform that the NRB issued in Washington on Friday, February 27. The NRB has done what the bishops should have done. The report is a great gift to the bishops and to the Church. Now the question is whether the bishops are capable of receiving the report, and acting on it. If not—and the initial responses are not encouraging—they will, as the report suggests, further undermine the confidence of the Catholic faithful in the authority, competence, and moral integrity of their leaders. That is the “Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States.” The report leaves no doubt that clerical sex abuse opened a window, exposing to sight a much larger reality of nonfeasance and malfeasance in the leadership of the Church.

Read it all here. Alas, the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles did not seem to get it in full. Phil Lawler says it like this in a special to Catholic World News:

Five years ago Cardinal Roger Mahony was reportedly encouraging Vatican officials to ask for the resignation of Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law. Using the same logical arguments that the American prelate presented in 2002, the Vatican should now ask Cardinal Mahony himself to step down.

The sensational cost of the sex-abuse scandal for the Los Angeles archdiocese far exceeds the devastation in Boston. The $660-million legal settlement announced on July 16 is nearly five times the total of the financial damages in Boston. Combining that settlement with previous agreements, lawyers' fees, and other associated costs, the overall price to be paid by the faithful Catholics of Los Angeles will approach $1 billion.

Yet the monetary costs, grave as they are, still do not reflect the most serious damage to the Catholic faith. Only rarely do I agree with an editorial in the Boston Globe, particularly when the topic is the Catholic faith. But today's Globe editorial is on target:

In the eyes of victims, the scandal will never be fully resolved as long as bishops who put the interests of their fellow priests over the protection of children remain in positions of leadership.

One could – and should – go further. This ugly chapter in Catholic history cannot be closed until the Church rebukes those prelates who put their own interests ahead of the needs of the Catholic faithful and the Catholic faith. Cardinal Mahony is the most conspicuous example.

Thanks to blogger Steve Ray for that report.

Bishops stopped acting like Bishops, and trusted secular counselors to fix priests who could not keep their vows. When they got caught, they let their defense and insurance lawyers stall and protect, rather than confessing their sin and doing their penance. (Which, it seems, is exactly what "saved" the original offenders.) The $660 million this has finally cost the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, after millions more paid elsewhere and even the bankruptcy of other Dioceses, is only the money side of the cost this has been to the Catholic Church. What about the cost to the faithful laity, clergy, and religious? And worse, the cost of (and to) those who lost their faith, or had it stripped away -- Catholic, protestant, and others?

And in all this we cannot set aside that this Long Lent, which still continues, has been deftly used by anti-Catholic zealots who attack the Catholic Church because it indeed has some sort of accountability for this sort of thing, even when it is horribly misused and mangled by those who should know better. Meanwhile other parts of our culture, in both sacred and secular realms, this same sort of behavior does not get much attention, or where in the popular media it is even encouraged.

Who'll pay for that when those chickens come home to roost?