The coffin of Pope Francis was ceremoniously closed this evening by Cardinal Roger Mahony, the retired ordinary of Los Angeles. There is nothing ordinary about Mahony — he was taken out of administrative and public-ministry circulation for a while because of the role he played in covering up abuse by priests.

While in many ways it is another day in the Catholic Church now, in other ways it isn’t. Mahony was given the role because of his seniority. He should have been passed over for the sake of common decency, optics, and justice.

For Americans, this was the second fellow countryman we shouldn’t have been seeing in a prominent role in these days after the death of Pope Francis. Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced the news of the pope’s death. The former ordinary of Dallas and auxiliary of Washington, D.C., Farrell’s most unforgettable credential is former roommate of Theodore McCarrick. Farrell has insisted he did not know McCarrick was doing anything evil. He was never even suspicious. That’s either not true, or extremely unsettling about the man’s judgment and observation skills.

As the Catholic News Agency noted this week:

In 2001, the year McCarrick came to Washington, Farrell became vicar general of the Washington archdiocese and an auxiliary bishop. Farrell also served as moderator of the archdiocesan curia; as both vicar general and moderator of the curia, he would have been McCarrick’s principal deputy on matters related to finances, parishes, schools, charitable projects, ministry programs, and the chancery staff of the archdiocese.

During the time in which Farrell lived with McCarrick and was his principal deputy in Washington, the Archdiocese of Newark paid into an $80,000 settlement with a laicized priest who claims he was abused by the former cardinal. In the same time period, the Diocese of Metuchen received several complaints that McCarrick committed abuse, which it referred to law enforcement and settled out of court. In 2006, the Diocese of Metuchen paid a separate $100,000 settlement to a laicized priest who said he had been abused by McCarrick.

In the same year, 2006, McCarrick moved from the apartment he shared with Farrell into a seminary in the Washington archdiocese.

They shared the apartment from 2001 to 2006.

“Never once did I even suspect,” Farrell has said about McCarrick.

Mahony and Farrell represent what should be shameful history. Instead they look to be in the lead.

Pope Francis was coined a great reformer early on. Seeing Mahony and Farrell so prominent at his funeral suggests something else. At the very least, there are miles to go yet.

Pray for those for whom seeing these men is painful. Pray for the wisdom and purity of heart of the men who will vote for the next pope in the upcoming conclave.