One of the most powerful Catholic leaders in the USA, Cardinal Mahony, has been relieved of his duties for failing to protect teens, children from abusive priests 
 
 In this 2007 file photo, Cardinal Roger Mahony speaks during an annual multi-ethnic migration Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. (Photo: Reed Saxon, AP) Story Highlights Cardinal Mahony was one of the top leaders in the U.S. church 
 
 Documents reveal that he knew about abusers and protected them 
 
 The leading victims group called the action a "meaningless gesture" 
 
 One of the most powerful Catholic leaders in the USA, Cardinal Roger Mahony, the retired archbishop of Los Angeles, has been relieved of his public roles for covering up for sexually abusive priests — a role the current archbishop called "evil." 
 
 Just hours after a court-ordered massive release of priest personnel files revealed the extent of Mahony's role in covering up for known sexual predators, Archbishop José Gómez announced Thursday night that he has relieved Mahony of his remaining duties. 
 
 A former top aide to Mahony also stepped down from his current post. 
 
 This is the first time since the massive abuse scandal exploded in 2002 hen there were direct repercussions for top church officials. In December 2002, Cardinal Bernard Law resigned his post as archbishop of Boston when protesters and priests called for him to step aside. 
 
 "I find these files to be brutal and painful reading," Gómez said in a statement, referring to the newly released files made public by the church Thursday night just hours after a judge's order. "The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil. There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children." 
 
 Gómez announced that he has "informed Cardinal Mahony that he will no longer have any administrative or public duties." 
 
 "Gómez also said Thomas Curry, former vicar of the clergy under Mahony who was the cardinal's point person in dealing with priests accused of molestation, has stepped down from his current job as auxiliary bishop for the archdiocese's Santa Barbara region. 
 
 Political scientist and Jesuit priest Thomas Reese opn Friday called it "unprecedented for an archbishop to limit the ministry of his predecessor and publicly take him to task like this. It shows that finally the abuse crisis not only has consequences for the abusing priests but also for the clerics who failed to deal with them properly." 
 
 But it remained unclear early Friday exactly what it means to limit Mahony's duties. He has not been removed from ministry -- the Church's now required policy for abusers. 
 
 An archdiocese spokesman, Tod Tamberg, told the Los Angeles Times that 'beyond canceling his confirmation schedule', Mahony could continue to offer Mass at his North Hollywood parish, and remain a "priest in good standing." 
 
 He can even vote to elect the next pope if Pope Benedict XVI were to die in the next three years. Mahony will turn 77 on Feb. 27 and cardinals are no longer eligible to vote at age 80. 
 
 And the leading victims group was not satisfied. David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said in a statement Thursday night, "Hand-slapping Cardinal Roger Mahony is a nearly meaningless gesture. 
 
 "When he had real power, and abused it horribly, he should have been demoted or disciplined by the church hierarchy, in Rome and in the US. But not a single Catholic cleric anywhere had the courage to even denounce him. Shame on them." 
 
 The resignation of Bishop Thomas Curry, said Clohessy, is " a small, belated step in the right direction, though it's obviously only being done because the horrific extent of his complicity is about to become publicly known. He should have been fired long ago." 
 
 Both Mahony and Curry issued public apologies earlier this month. 
 
 Thursday's actions came within hours after the public release of some 30,000 pages from the confidential files of priests accused of child molestation. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias ordered the diocese to turn over without blacking out the names of top church officials who were responsible for handling priests accused of abuse. 
 
 Terence McKiernan, president of the online site, BishopAccountability.org which tracks church documents in the abuse crisis, complained Thursday night in a statement that Gómez only acted when the documents became public and that the pope should remove Mahony not only from his top ranking as a cardinal, a "prince of the church" but also from the priesthood itself. 
 
 "Gómez has had these documents for months and known about Mahony's wrongdoing long before now. And yet Mahony has continued to be an honored prelate and prince of the church. The difference is that now the people have access to evidence of Mahony's misdeeds. Sadly, we see the church acting ethically in these matters only when its actions become known," McKiernan said. 
 
 "Mahony's misdeeds deserve a much more substantial punishment than the tweaking of his administrative status by someone junior to him in the church's hierarchical society. Pope Benedict XVI should remove Mahony from the College of Cardinals." 
 
 Mahony led the archdiocese for 25 years until he retired in 2011. Were it not for his role in covering up for abuse, his legacy would 
 
 Bishop Robert W. Finn of Missouri, who was convicted last September of failing to report a priest suspected of abuse to authorities, has remained in office and unpunished by the church despite his unprecedented guilty plea. 
 
 Church observers say Gomez must have had clearance from Rome to rebuke Mahony, says David Gibson of Religion News Service. 
 
 Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Friday that "the Vatican is aware of the Los Angeles diocese's latest decisions but this matter is in the hands of the local archbishop." 
 
 Mahony has lectured widely on immigration issues and the future of the church since retiring in March 2011. Mahony remains eligible to vote for a new pope until he turns 80, in three years. Lombardi noted that the suspension does not affect the "other duties assigned by the pope to Cardinal Mahony in the Curia." 
 
 Jerry Filteau of the National Catholic Reporter also noted that the church's Code of Canon Law gives cardinals a privileged position and even says that they are "exempt from the power of governance of the bishop of the diocese in which they are residing." 
 
 Mahony, who was archbishop from 1985 to 2011 and a cardinal since 1991, championed social justice and immigrant rights and built a massive new cathedral in the heart of Los Angeles. 
 
 But when he retired, story after story detailed the decade he spent fighting abuse victims and their lawyers to hide L.A. church officials role in protecting and promoting known abusers and shuffling them from one parish to another. 
 
 By the time of Mahony's retirement, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles had paid $660 million in settlements to 500 victims. 
 
 Contributing: Associated Press: Alessandro Speciale and David Gibson, Religion News Service 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/VyGX0E ||||| Survivors of priest abuse held a news conference Friday to speak out about their experiences and plans to move forward. Joy Benedict reports. 
 
 In a move unprecedented in the American Catholic Church, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez announced Thursday that he had relieved his predecessor, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, of all public duties over his mishandling of clergy sex abuse of children decades ago. 
 
 Gomez also said that Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Curry, who worked with Mahony to conceal abusers from police in the 1980s, had resigned his post as a regional bishop in Santa Barbara. 
 
 The announcement came as the church posted on its website tens of thousands of pages of previously secret personnel files for 122 priests accused of molesting children. 
 
 "I find these files to be brutal and painful reading. The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil," Gomez wrote in a letter addressed to "My brothers and sisters in Christ." 
 
 The release of the records and the rebuke of the two central figures in L.A.'s molestation scandal signaled a clear desire by Gomez to define the sexual abuse crisis as a problem of a different era — and a different archbishop. 
 
 "I cannot undo the failings of the past that we find in these pages. Reading these files, reflecting on the wounds that were caused has been the saddest experience I've had since becoming your Archbishop in 2011," Gomez wrote. 
 
 The public censure of Mahony, whose quarter-century at the helm of America's largest archdiocese made him one of the most powerful men in the Catholic Church, was unparalleled, experts said. 
 
 "This is very unusual and shows really how seriously they're taking this. To tell a cardinal he can't do confirmations, can't do things in public, that's extraordinary," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and Georgetown University fellow. 
 
 An archdiocese spokesman, Tod Tamberg, said that beyond canceling his confirmation schedule, Mahony's day-to-day life as a retired priest would be largely unchanged. He resides at a North Hollywood parish, and Tamberg said he would remain a "priest in good standing." He can continue to celebrate Mass and will be eligible to vote for pope until he turns 80 two years from now, Tamberg said. 
 
 The move further stained the legacy of Mahony, a tireless advocate for Latinos and undocumented immigrants whose reputation has been marred over the last decade by revelations about his treatment of sex abuse allegations. 
 
 Before Gomez's announcement, Mahony had weathered three grand jury investigations and numerous calls for his resignation. He stayed in office until the Vatican's mandatory retirement age of 75. No criminal charges have been filed against Mahony or anyone in the church hierarchy. 
 
 Terrence McKiernan, president of bishopaccountability.org, said that in a religious institution that values saving face and protecting its own, Gomez's decision to publicly criticize an elder statesman of the church and his top aide was striking. 
 
 "Even when Cardinal [Bernard] Law was removed in Boston, which was arguably for the same offenses, this kind of gesture was not made," he said. 
 
 Law left office in 2002 amid mounting outrage over his transfer of pedophile priests from parish to parish, but the church presented his departure as of his own accord and he was later given a highly coveted Vatican job in Rome. 
 
 Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien of Phoenix relinquished some of his authority in a deal with prosecutors to avoid criminal charges for his handling of abuse cases, but he kept his title and many of his duties. A Kansas City bishop convicted last year of failing to report child abuse retained his position. 
 
 The Rev. Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer and Dominican priest who has testified across the nation as an expert witness in clergy sex abuse cases, said the Vatican would have "absolutely" been consulted on a decision of this magnitude. 
 
 "This is momentous, there is no question," he said. "For something like this to happen to a cardinal.... The way they treat cardinals is as if they're one step below God." 
 
 Gomez's decision capped a two-week period in which the publication of 25-year-old files fueled a new round of condemnation of the L.A. archdiocese. The files of 14 clerics accused of abuse became public in a court case last Monday. They laid out in Mahony and Curry's own words how the church hierarchy had plotted to keep law enforcement from learning that children had been molested at the hands of priests. 
 
 To stave off investigations, Mahony and Curry gave priests they knew had abused children out-of-state assignments and kept them from seeing therapists who might alert authorities. 
 
 Mahony and Curry both issued apologies, with the cardinal saying he had not realized the extent of harm done to children until he met with victims during civil litigation. "I am sorry," he said.
– The former archbishop of Los Angeles has been removed from all public duties due to the central role he played in the coverup of child abuse. Tens of thousands of pages revealing the extent of the abuse crisis, now posted on the church's website, are "brutal and painful reading. The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil," said current archbishop Jose Gomez. The public action against Cardinal Roger Mahony—which comes within hours of the documents' court-ordered release—is "unprecedented" within the American Catholic Church, according to the Los Angeles Times. "To tell a cardinal he can't do confirmations, can't do things in public, that's extraordinary," says a Jesuit priest. While his confirmation schedule has been wiped, Mahony's daily life won't look much different, says an archdiocese spokesman, noting that the retired priest will stay "a priest in good standing" and can still celebrate Mass. The leading victim's group isn't happy with the outcome, USA Today notes. "Hand-slapping Cardinal Roger Mahony is a nearly meaningless gesture," says a rep. A bishop who aided in the coverup has also resigned, Gomez said.