Pope Francis accepted Auxiliary Bishop Alexander Salazar's resignation Wednesday, Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gómez said in a statement.According to Wikipedia,Salazar most recently was vicar for the Office of Ethnic Ministries of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Gomez said.
"I regret to inform you that in 2005, a year after he had been ordained a bishop, the Archdiocese was made aware of an allegation against Bishop Salazar of misconduct with a minor," Gomez said in the statement.
Gomez said the accusation against Salazar stemmed from alleged misconduct in the 1990s when he was a parish priest and not an ordained bishop.
"Although the allegation was never directly reported to the Archdiocese, it was investigated by law enforcement in 2002, and the District Attorney did not prosecute," the archbishop said. It was not immediately clear why the case wasn't prosecuted.
In 1977, Salazar entered St. John's Seminary in Camarillo. He was ordained to the priesthood by Timothy Cardinal Manning on June 16, 1984. . . . On September 7, 2004, Salazar was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles and Titular Bishop of Nesqually by Pope John Paul II. . . . In 2005, the Archdiocese learned that in 2002 civil authorities had investigated a claim that Salazar had been accused of sexual misconduct with a minor in the 1990s and decided not to prosecute him. According to Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith then "conducted an investigation and imposed certain precautionary measures on the ministry of Bishop Salazar".In 2013, Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gómez barred his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, from public ministry in Los Angeles, due to accusations that Mahony had covered up widespread abuse among priests in the archdiocese. Mahony is one of the figures that Randy Engler singles out in The Rite of Sodomy as influential in a cluster of gay- and gay-friendly bishop cliques that dominated the US Church in the 1990s. The St John's Seminary is also noted by Engler as gay-dominated, although the impression I have is that some very good archdiocesan priests have come from there as well.
Mahony, who made his reputation as a political liberal by allying himself with Cesar Chavez in the 1960s and 70s, was close to the California political establishment, and it can't be ruled out that the Los Angeles District Attorney decided not to prosecute Salazar on that basis.
Gómez succeeded Mahony as archbishop in 2011. A year later, Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala resigned at age 60 after informing Gómez that he had a "wife" and two children in another state, so Salazar is the second scandalous auxiliary to resign on Gómez's watch. Zavala, another political liberal, was also popular among the establishment. Gómez inherited both Salazar and Zavala from Mahony.
The Wikipedia entry notes that the CDF investigated Salazar in connection with the 1990s allegations in 2005 and had placed "certain precautionary measures" on his ministry, but he lasted another 13 years as an auxiliary. This suggests that Salazar had something like what the Japanese call a "window seat", a job without many duties, but was being kept around to preserve appearances. The Los Angeles Times, a Mahony ally, would certainly have been complicit. My impression is that Gómez is moving about as quickly as anyone can in his position to clean things up.
