**Some church critics said Gomez’s actions, particularly against Mahony, amounted to a slap on the wrist as long as he remained a cardinal and a member of the powerful Vatican body that elects the Pope.**
I was wondering he Mahony would still be a member of the College of Cardinals.
Even if Archbishop Gomez successfully petitioned to have Mahony laicized, the biretta is beyond his reach. (The last lay cardinal was sometime in the 19th century, but it is a possibility).