Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony said that he is under investigation on charges of sexual misconduct allegedly committed more than 30 years ago and that he denies them.
The cardinal, who heads the largest Roman Catholic archdiocese in the United States, has denied the charges and said he had never heard of his accuser until informed of her claims by the bishop of Fresno, John Steinblock, late last month.
It was the latest accusation in a sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church in the United States and led to the removal of priests in several states since the trial earlier this year of defrocked Boston priest John Geoghan, who was sentenced to prison for child molestation.
The woman claimed that Cardinal Mahony knocked her unconscious and molested her when she was a teen-ager attending a high school he taught at when he was a priest in 1970.
In an interview broadcast on NBC, Flora Mae Hickman said she was knocked unconscious when she was crossing the campus of San Joaquin High School in Fresno and when she woke up, Cardinal Mahony was hovering over her.
"I know people are not going to believe it, but it happened to me," she said.
In a statement last night, Cardinal Mahony said he asked for investigations by both police and the church. "My personal integrity demands that I refute this," he said.
He said that when he learned of the accusations on March 22 he personally asked the detective in charge of the city's Sexually Exploited Children's Unit to inform his counterparts in Fresno.
"Such false allegations are hurtful and troubling to me. Yet I continue to pray fervently for those who make them," he said.