[See also other articles by Gustavo Arellano.]

On the eve of a December 3 contempt-of-court hearing against Catholic Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown, longtime diocesan lawyer ( and Orange County's 14th Scariest Person for 2007 ) Peter Callahan remains brazenly arrogant in discussing his client's terrible role in protecting pedophiles and statutory rapists. This time around, Callahan granted an "interview" to the Orange diocese's website (if by "interview," you can accept it as "shameless attempt at spin paid for by the faithful's donations"). Let's eviscerate Petey's claims, shall we?


Callahan starts by describing the molestation of Christina Ruiz by former Mater Dei boys' basketball assistant coach (and admitted statutory rapist ) Jeff Andrade as a "sexual relationship." We'll leave it to the Orange County Register's Steve Greenhut to express the disgust we feel at Petey's wink-wink attitude toward sexual abusers. Callahan claims that Mater Dei officials reported Andrade to Child Protective Services as required by law in 1995 when the molestation allegations first arose, but a spokesperson with the agency told us in 2004 no such records existed in their files .

Petey then told the echo chamber/diocesan website that Bishop Brown settled four recent sex-abuse cases because of his care for the victims, but the truth quickly bubbled out of Callahan: in reality, the bishop considered "the significant amount of erroneous and adverse press coverage that we had received, and the disruption the trial would have caused the high school, and he decided that the settlement reflected a reasonable conclusion."

Oh, Petey. Are you still after the press? You tried that bit before --and it came to bite you in Brown's pocketbook. And Mater Dei has never particularly cared about former alumni who were abused--how on Earth could a sex-abuse trial affect the soulless Monarchs, especially with their football team in the CIF playoffs?

And it goes on like this , but I'll end it here. Just a bit of advice, Petey: your namesake saint doesn't like guys who make a living out of belittling innocents.

E-mail: GARELLANO@OCWEEKLY.COM