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This year, though, Cardinal Mahony was nowhere to be seen at the gathering, the Religious Education Congress. His workshop on immigration was canceled. The cardinal was relieved of his public duties last month by his successor after the release of 12,000 pages of internal church files revealing how Cardinal Mahony protected priests accused of sexually abusing minors.

In a rare breach of the deference American bishops usually grant one another, the current archbishop of Los Angeles, José H. Gomez, said he found the documents "brutal and painful" reading. Cardinal Mahony soon shot back, posting a bitter open letter to Archbishop Gomez on his blog.

With Cardinal Mahony set to fly to Rome next week to elect a new pope, the prelates' duel in the country's largest archdiocese has set off shock waves in the church. Catholics in Los Angeles are re-evaluating the cardinal's legacy, and newspapers in Italy are running articles asking whether the disgraced cardinal should attend the papal conclave.

At the same time, this is a defining moment for Archbishop Gomez, who took over from Cardinal Mahony two years ago and is universally described as low-key and quiet, particularly compared with his predecessor. His public rebuke of Cardinal Mahony stunned observers not only for its content, but because the normally mild-mannered archbishop would react so swiftly and dramatically. Now, many here are waiting anxiously to see how he will try to lead the archdiocese past the scandal.

The documents show that Cardinal Mahony helped shield priests accused of sexual abuse from the police, in some cases encouraging them to stay out of the state or country to avoid potential criminal investigations.

Cardinal Mahony's shadow looms large. Attendees at the congress, largely educators who teach teenagers and adults across the country, said they have been stung by recent events and are grappling with ways to make sense of what happened and how to move forward.

Even here, among people who were once some of the cardinal's staunchest supporters, there is a quiet debate over whether he should vote in the conclave. While those here stopped short of saying publicly that Cardinal Mahony should not participate in the conclave, there is a palpable sense of anger, betrayal and confusion over his role in protecting priests accused of sexual abuse.

"He is a man — he has made mistakes," said Carmen Vargas, a master catechist from Covina, Calif., who trains other adult educators. She said the turmoil in recent weeks has prompted dozens of difficult conversations among her peers. "But he has admitted to the problems and apologized for them," she said. "We cannot just shut him down. He needs his voice heard to decide the next pope. He has earned that right."

In most ways, the practical impact of Archbishop Gomez's rebuke is minimal — while Cardinal Mahony has canceled presiding at confirmations this year, he is still a priest in good standing with the church. He can still celebrate Mass and is still eligible to vote for a pope.

But the symbolism is significant, said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University.

"This is the institutional church publicly acknowledging hierarchical failure," he said, adding that Archbishop Gomez has "exercised his authority as far as it will go."

Now, many see this as a first turn in the spotlight for Archbishop Gomez. Cardinal Mahony was known for marching in public rallies, cultivating allies in politics and Hollywood and an almost larger-than-life public persona. By contrast, Archbishop Gomez has only rarely appeared in the press over the last two years. He declined to be interviewed for this article and his staff declined to allow a reporter into the Religious Education Congress without an escort.

Before Cardinal Mahony's retirement, he wrote that he asked Pope Benedict XVI to appoint an archbishop coadjutor who would work alongside him for a year. When the appointment turned out to be his "friend and brother" Archbishop Gomez, Cardinal Mahony said he was delighted. He was particularly happy, he wrote, that a Mexican priest would take over the diocese, where more than two-thirds of the parishioners are Latino.

The two lived together with three other priests for more than a year, watching football games and traveling through much of the region as a pair.

After the documents were released last month, Archbishop Gomez said in his statement that he was shocked at the content and placed blame on his predecessor. But an official familiar with church affairs in Los Angeles, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending the church hierarchy, said that Archbishop Gomez was familiar with the contents of the documents well before they were released, and was a hands-on administrator who wanted to be kept apprised of the developments regarding the documents.

The recent documents are not the first time Archbishop Gomez has dealt with scandal here. Last year, Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala stepped down after admitting he fathered two teenage children, who lived with their mother in another state.

Many here questioned whether Archbishop Gomez, a theological conservative shaped by his membership in the movement Opus Dei, would move quickly to undo Cardinal Mahony's more liberal policies, like appointing women and lay people to powerful positions and supporting a robust AIDS ministry. But two years after taking the reins, he is often praised for not acting along ideological lines and has made changes only slowly. Last year, for example, he changed the name of the Office of Justice and Peace to the Office of Life, Justice and Peace.

It will be another four years before Archbishop Gomez is eligible to be made a cardinal — when Cardinal Mahony turns 80 and can no longer vote in the conclave. According to church rules, a diocese cannot have two voting cardinals.

For many, Cardinal Mahony has long been a lightning rod in the church. He has deep wells of respect among Latinos, largely because of his role as a champion for immigrants. But traditionalists resent him for his liberal stances. And he has come under considerable attack for the way he handled priests accused of sexual abuse, particularly since 2007, when the archdiocese reached a record $660 million settlement with more than 500 victims.

In recent weeks, Cardinal Mahony responded with his own vigorous defense, saying that he had never been prepared to deal with the problem and that he later worked to put protections for children into place. And he has written regularly on his blog about being confronted, "scapegoated" and "humiliated, disgraced and rebuffed by many."

On Saturday, Cardinal Mahony is scheduled to be questioned under oath about several cases of sexual abuse in the documents.

Some Catholics have tried to create a steady drumbeat calling on him to stay home from the papal conclave. Protesters from Catholics United, an advocacy group, plan to deliver petitions to his home in North Hollywood this weekend demanding that he stay put. The Italian news media have seized on the story. In an interview with La Repubblica, Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, a Vatican official, said that Cardinal Mahony's participation was a "troubling situation."

But Cardinal Mahony has written effusively about attending the conclave. Archbishop Gomez sent a letter to his priests last week urging them to "extend your prayers and warm wishes for Cardinal Roger Mahony as he prepares to travel to Rome to exercise his sacred duty as Cardinal Elector of our next Pope."