Cardinal Roger Mahony marked the start of Lent Wednesday by calling for the Catholic Church itself to do penance, in part for the abuse of children by clergy and for not speaking out "forcefully enough" against Nazi atrocities.
Mahony, head of the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, made his comments in a message to parishioners on the first day of a 40-day season during which Catholics prepare for Easter by doing penance for sins and seeking spiritual renewal through prayer, fasting and good works.
"As we begin the Lenten journey this year, it is crucial to face the fact that the Church has not always been a light in the darkness. And so, penance and renewal are called for again and again," he wrote.
The sins the cardinal cited included sexual abuse by clergy, the "insufficient response" of the church, and its failure to speak more forcefully against the former system of apartheid in South Africa, the massacres in Rwanda a decade ago and the extermination of millions of people -- including six million Jews -- during the Nazi Holocaust.
Tod Tamberg, the cardinal's spokesman, said in a telephone interview that he has no recollection of Mahony having previously addressed the issue of the role of the church during World War II.
Tamberg said that, as Mahony writes his own messages to Catholics in his archdiocese, he did not know for certain what prompted the cardinal to discuss the issue. But he speculated the recent 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp may have been a factor.
What the Vatican did or did not do to oppose the crimes of the Nazis during the reign of Pope Pius XII is one of the most controversial issues confronting the Roman Catholic Church in the modern era.
On one side of a debate that rages to this day are those who say Pius did everything he reasonably could to protect Jews from the Nazis while not imperiling Catholics in countries under Nazi control. On the other side are those who argue that the pope was virtually silent on the plight of the Jews, making him in effect complicit.
Defenders of the Vatican's World War II activities point to the fact that in 1944, the chief rabbi of Rome, Israel Eugenio Zolli, converted to Catholicism, so impressed was he with the charity that Pius had shown.
Those on the other side of the debate cite the Vatican's repeated refusal -- despite entreaties by American diplomats and others -- to clearly condemn the Nazis, even after it received evidence, including from an SS defector, of the crimes being carried out in concentration camps throughout eastern Europe.
"Our period of penance and renewal is undertaken not just by individuals, but by the whole Church, because the whole body must be purified, not just this or that part," Mahony wrote.
"Why? Because all too often so many of us are motivated by world ambition rather than by the pure desire to shed our blood for love; because we have not spoken out clearly and forcefully enough against war, against the Holocaust of the Jews and (millions of) others, against the Rwanda massacres, against the bitter yoke of apartheid and the many tragic events on the contemporary scene..."
Mahony's message was delivered at a time when his archdiocese is facing lawsuits from nearly 500 plaintiffs in the clergy abuse scandal. He himself has been denounced for ordering two priests accused of child molestation to leave the country, evading prosecution, when he was bishop of Stockton two decades ago.
"The Church continues to seek forgiveness and healing because of the terrible sin of clergy sexual abuse, acknowledging our mistakes and our insufficient response to the sin," Mahony said in his lenten message.