Attorney John Manly and his firm's "legal consultant" Patrick Wall appeared on an early 2007 episode of the "Insider Exclusive" internet video show hosted by a Steve Murphy.

In the interview the following exchange took place:

MANLY: ... Secondly, we're fighting [the archdiocese of Los Angeles] on the truth. Because they don't want any of the documents to come out. Because if the documents come out, the Cardinal will be indicted, and that's the simple fact.

HOST: Cardinal Mahony.

MANLY: Correct.

Well, Manly made these statements in early 2007. As I write this it's early 2009, two years later. No such indictment of Cardinal Mahony has occurred. Do you wonder why not? Read the truth here and here.

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Manly also spoke of former priest Michael Baker:

MANLY: This is a man that the cardinal put, who knew in 1986, told the Cardinal he was an abuser, and he was in ministry with access to children in 2002. He's so bad, that the D.A. arrested him in 2005 --

HOST/PRODUCER STEVE MURPHY: The D.A. here in Los Angeles --

MANLY: Right -- had him arrested coming off a plane from Thailand where he had just delivered a load of candy bars and teddy bears. And I'm not kidding.

WRONG. Baker was absolutely not "in ministry with access to children in 2002." As we've written before, Baker was completely laicized in December of 2000. And Baker's trip to Thailand, of which the archdiocese would have had no control or knowledge, took place in 2006, not 2005.

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Manly's "legal consultant" Patrick Wall also got into the act:

WALL: In the church's world they are simply exercising the geographic solution. They simply take the scandal that is known, the scandal's been known since the fourth century. The first meeting the bishops ever had was at the Council of Elvira in 309 A.D. about the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic clerics. And they simply move that priest around. So the Baker case is quintessential. Cardinal Mahony is doing nothing else than what any other bishop, and any other Cardinal, does in the entire world. They take the problem and they move it to a different place. The Church is very arrogant. The Church is one of the most powerful, land-rich, and financially rich institutions in the world. And they simply just move that priest around. And that priest continues to function, even after they have known that he's abused children. They will allow him to function pastorally as a priest and have access to more children. And that's the public safety issue right there. The thing that's important is to make the huge distinction between the institution and faith. Faith does not need the institution. The institution functions like any other institution.

HOST: Trying to preserve itself.

WALL: Absolutely.

1. Wall's assertion that the Council of Elvira met "about the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic clerics" is misleading at best. Here's how the Catholic Encyclopedia characterizes the Council of Elvira in its article:

[The 81] canons, all disciplinary, throw much light on the religious and ecclesiastical life of Spanish Christians on the eve of the triumph of Christianity. They deal with marriage, baptism, idolatry, fasting, excommunication, the cemeteries, usury, vigils, frequentation of Mass, the relations of Christians with pagans, Jews, heretics, etc.

As the article states, there were 81 canons. A page at Catholic University lists them all. A whopping two of them can be said to deal specifically with the abuse of children. There's canon 12:

Parents and other Christians who give up their children to sexual abuse are selling others' bodies, and if they do so or sell their own bodies, they shall not receive communion even at death.

Then there's canon 71:

Those who sexually abuse boys may not commune even when death approaches.

And there you go. That's two of the 81 canons (2.5%). As you can see, not one of the canons mentions "sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic clerics," as Wall claims.

Wall's claim that the Council of Elvira met "about the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic clerics" is incredibly warped.

2. Wall's claim in which he implies that the Church today "will allow [an abusive priest] to function pastorally as a priest and have access to more children" is simply outrageous. The Catholic bishops in the United States have a  '''zero tolerance' policy of dismissing from the ministry all abusive priests."

3. Wall claims, "Faith doesn't need the institution."  Well, that's not what Jesus thought! See Matthew 16:17-18 for starters.