By Gustavo Arellano
Orange County Weekly
October 15, 2008
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/ex-cathedra/bishop-john-steinbock-is-a-dis/
[See also other
articles by Gustavo Arellano.]
Greatest-Religion-Reporter-Ever William Lobdell
alerted me to the story
of Diocese of Fresno Bishop John Steinbock removing Father Geoffrey Farrow from the diocese and his salary and health benefits for speaking out against the gay-marriage-banning Proposition 8 and coming out as a homosexual. That alone is a dick move, but Steinbock's rationale is stunning: in a letter to Farrow, His Excellency wrote "Your statement contradicted the teaching of the Catholic Church and has brought scandal to your parish community as well as the whole Church."
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Scandal? Contradicting Church teachings? Perhaps Steinbock's getting senile and forgot that he's a prime target for such verbal lashes. Sex-abuse victims remember Steinbock for protecting Father Eleuterio Ramos , the most prolific pedo-priest in Orange County history. When Ramos admitted to Steinbock--then auxiliary bishop and Bishop Michael Driscoll (now Bishop of Boise) that he molested a boy while serving at St. Anthony Claret in Anaheim, it was Steinbock who suggested Ramos get sent to "vacation immediately" instead of turning him over to the cops; Ramos would go on to minister to children in Tijuana and never served a day in jail for molesting at least 25 boys. Steinbock also knew about pedophile allegations lodged against Richard Coughlin when the Archdiocese of Boston sent him to Orange but didn't do anything about them; here, Coughlin continued his boy-buggering ways .
And it was Steinbock who led a haphazard investigation into allegations that Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown (a classmate of Steinbock's at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo) had abused a boy while in the Diocese of Fresno during the 1960s.
Scandal? Contradicting Church teachings? That's the modus operandi of California's brother bishops, who did nothing to stop the pedophiles in their ranks but get hot and bothered when gays and lesbians dare assert their humanity. At this point, only a moron would follow the advice of California's Catholic leaders (note I attacked the hierarchy and not the faith, Papists). They tell you to vote for Prop. 8, Catholics? Do what Jesus would do--let the gays marry, and purge your Church of the true sinners.
E-mail: GARELLANO@OCWEEKLY.COM
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