BishopAccountability.org
	Is Diocese Hewing to 'Covenant'? By Frank Mickadeit Orange County Register September 13, 2007 http://www.ocregister.com/column/brown-deposition-lawyer-1844572-callahan-diocese I drove to Holy Family Cathedral on Glassell in Orange yesterday morning to see whether the large white placard bearing Bishop Tod Brown's Covenant with the Faithful was still right where he nailed it with great sincerity and humility (and media coverage) on Jan. 18, 2004. Indeed it was, all seven theses. Let's review a few. No. 1: "We will continue to do everything possible to help the healing process of the victims of sexual abuse." No. 4: "We will work collaboratively with all members of the Diocese to promote an atmosphere of openness and trust. … No. 5: "We will be open, honest and forthright in our public statements to the media and transparent in our communications with the Catholics of our Diocese." No. 6: "We will restore confidence in our role as Bishops." I was right there with you, Excellency, a former altar boy believing you were going to do the right thing in the wake of the sex scandals. Now, I'm not so sure. A diocesan lawyer this week won a ruling temporarily sealing from the public Brown's deposition in a civil case involving a woman who was 15 when she was first sexually abused by a Mater Dei High assistant basketball coach named Jeff Andrade. A hearing will be held this afternoon to determine whether to make all or part of it sealed permanently. The lawyer, Peter Callahan, released a short statement yesterday saying Brown's "Covenant with the Faithful remains strong." But in Brown's deposition he made some statements pertaining to an employee's health, and those statements might have to remain sealed under state and federal law, Callahan said. "We are asking the Judge at the earliest opportunity to determine whether the … information … may be made public." As worded, it makes it sound as though the diocese actually favors disclosure – that it is only seeking the judge's ruling in an abundance of caution. "Why not just have the part about the medical stuff redacted and release the rest?" I asked Callahan yesterday afternoon. Not so easy, he said. The medical information "was scattered throughout" Brown's testimony. Well, I said, if the diocese is really committed to the Covenant and its call for openness, why did the bishop fight giving his deposition in the first place? "He didn't (fight it)," Callahan told me. "I did." And, said the lawyer, he wasn't fighting the deposition, per se, but rather the nature of the deposition – whether the request for it had been legally filed, whether the plaintiffs had the right to ask Brown certain questions. Hmm, I wondered. Maybe I read right over the part of the Covenant of with the Faithful that says, "… unless my lawyer tells me otherwise." Brown has got an issue far bigger than any one lawsuit. It is this: How long will the faithful hang in there? How many shots of my-lawyer-made-me-do-it does he think his flock will take? Didn't Jesus drive the lawyers out of the temple? It was the sub prime lenders? Well, same thing. … Anyway, I'm one Catholic who is past the zero-tolerance level when it comes to obfuscation. Not to worry, Callahan says, all will be revealed shortly. In fact, he says, the diocese is looking forward to a public trial that's scheduled to begin next week. "We're quite prepared to discuss (the incident) in front of a jury." Well, says I, how about the part of the Covenant that talks about "do(ing) everything possible to help the healing process …"? I mean, there's no doubt the coach and the now-26-year-old woman in this case – called C. R. Doe – had sex over a two-year period. He admitted to it. So why put her through seven days of deposition that included detailed questions about her sex life? "If anybody has a lawsuit filed against them, the lawyers have an obligation to prepare," Callahan said. Questions about her sex life, he said, were necessary to establish "there is a big difference between someone who is raped and someone who is 16 and chooses to enter into a relationship. … And 'relationship' was a word she used." Hmm. Where have I heard that kind of defense before? "This is like Haidl, Part II," Doe's lawyer, John Manly, told me yesterday. Ah, yes. That's where I heard it before. Paging Joe Cavallo. Contact the writer: Mickadeit writes Mon.-Fri. Contact him at 714-796-4994 or fmickadeit@ocregister.com.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.