As archbishop of Los Angeles, Roger Mahony was famous for his petulance, dispatching angry letters to priests and others whom he considered insufficiently deferential.  But now that he finds himself in a subordinate position as a retired and rebuked bishop he displays none of the deference he once demanded.

No sooner had his successor stripped him of his diocese-wide “administrative” and “public” duties than the cardinal took to his “blog” to pout over the demotion through a snubbing letter. Hinting at a powerful faction of Los Angeles movers and shakers behind him while adopting a tone of passive-aggressive innocence, Cardinal Mahony wrote on his blog that “others” had “encouraged” him to publicize his...