All I can say is that these old guys must be hard partiers. Levada's colleague Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio is reported to have presided over the cocaine-fueled orgy at which other arrests were made in the CDF building in 2017; the report is that Coccopalmerio was advised to leave by the police before they began making the arrests. My only question about Levada is what BAC he blew when the Hawaii police pulled him over; as someone who partied at the Animal House myself in my younger days, I'd love to know how the old guy did! (A visitor helped out: he blew a .168.) Of course, drunkenness is a mortal sin, and somewhere in early middle age I resolved not to consume any alcohol if there was a chance I'd be driving.
Levada had an extensive record before this, however. Ms Engel gives a summary of his career in The Rite of Sodomy:
Bishop William J. Levada, like Roger Cardinal Mahony and Bishop G. Patrick Ziemann, was an alumnus of Our Lady Queen of Angels Junior Seminary. After graduation from St. John’s Seminary, Levada was put on the ecclesiastical fast track. He was sent to Rome for advanced theological studies at the “Greg” and was ordained a priest of the Los Angeles Archdiocese in St.Peter’s Basilica in December 1961.This leaves out the whole sorry saga of Levada's protégé Bishop of Santa Rosa, CA G.Patrick Ziemann, who abruptly resigned in 1999 after a former Ukiah priest filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault. A series of lawsuits followed, based on accusations of abuse dating back to 1968. Levada, at the time Archbishop of San Francisco, continued to cover for Ziemann even after his resignation. Engel in an update to The Rite of Socomy continues Levada's story:After a brief return to Los Angeles during which time he served as assistant pastor, Levada went back to Rome, completed his Doctorate in Sacred Theology, and then came back to St. John’s Seminary where he taught for six years.
In 1976, Levada was called back to the Vatican and assigned to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In 1982, Cardinal Timothy Manning asked that Levada be released to fill the post of Executive Director of the California Catholic Conference in Sacramento. One year later, Manning ordained Levada an Auxiliary Bishop.
In the fall of 1986, only 14 months after Archbishop Mahony took possession of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Levada was appointed Archbishop of Portland, Ore. When the Archdiocese of San Francisco opened up in December 1995 with the resignation of Archbishop John R. Quinn, Cardinal Mahony obtained the coveted post for his former classmate. Not surprisingly, Archbishop Levada’s motto is Fratres in Unum, or Brothers at one, taken from the first verse of the 133rd Psalm. (pp 803-4)
At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI has appointed “gay friendly” Archbishop William Levada, former Archbishop of San Francisco to head the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and has awarded him the red hat. Levada in turn, with the help of “gay friendly” Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, has secured his former archdiocese [San Francisco] for his boyhood buddy “gay friendly” Archbishop George “Brokeback” Niederauer. Levada and Niederauer were classmates at St. John’s Seminary and pederasty training camp in Camarillo, Calif., and they co-own a retirement condo in Long Beach. Niederauer insists there is no link between pederasty and homosexuality and is a proponent of ordaining “gays” as long as they are “celibate.” (p 1171)Following his retirement, Levada lives at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, CA, which Engel describes as "another 'Pink Palace.'" (p 810) It's worth pointing out that another Levada protégé, now-Bp Steven Lopes, is a graduate of St Patrick's Menlo Park. According to Wikipedia, Lopes was ordained a priest on June 23, 2001, for the Archdiocese of San Francisco by William Levada. He was a personal aide to Cardinal Levada while Levada was Prefect of the CDF from 2005 to 2012. This is a career path similar to Donald Wuerl.
In fact, when Lopes was made Bishop of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter in 2016, his consecrators were Gerhard Müller, Donald Wuerl, and Levada himself. Thus it goes with a certain type of aristocracy in the Vatican. Jeffrey Steenson was unavailable for comment.
UPDATE: My regular correspondent adds,
Regarding Bp Lopes, this might explain why Fr Catania, who had a very rough time of it during the Steenson regime, was given a plum posting by Bp Lopes. As I have mentioned, while waiting for Fr Scheiblhofer to pack up at St Barnabas, Omaha (he is now ministering at a local diocesan parish) Fr Catania was living in the rectory at Holy Trinity, Omaha and supplying while the Pastor went on vacation with---Bp Lopes.
