[See also other articles by Gustavo Arellano.]

Yesterday, a Fresno jury acquitted the Catholic Diocese of Fresno of culpability in the priestly rapes of innocents , and does this news really surprise you given Fresno is Fresno? We really can't expect much intellectually and morally of this town, given its head padre is Bishop John Steinbock, former auxiliary bishop of the Orange diocese . On the witness stand, news accounts quote Steinbock as saying, "I never have returned anyone to ministry that I believe was guilty of sex abuse."


HAHAHAHAHA! Man, did the lawyers going after the Fresno diocese not do their homework? How about Fresno reporters? Fact is, Steinbock LIED--I'd call it perjury, because isn't that the legal term for when someone lies on the witness stand?

Steinbock's statement, again: "I never have returned anyone to ministry that I believe was guilty of sex abuse." Let's work our way back through Steinbock's greatest pedo-priest cover-ups, shall we?

*In 1987, a priest admitted to Steinbock--who at that point was bishop of the Diocese of Santa Rosa in Northern California--that he kissed and molested underage girls. That priest already had a lewd conduct conviction under his robes. Steinbock's response? Let the fucker continue in his children's ministry. STRIKE ONE

*Two years earlier, the most prolific pedophile priest in Orange County history, admitted to molesting a teenage boy while serving at St. Anthony Claret in Anaheim. Rather than report Eleuterio Ramos to the police, Steinbock ships Ramos off to Tijuana . In a note to fellow pedophile protector Michael Driscoll (then an Orange bishop, currently Bishop of Boise), Steinbock wrote that the "possibility of past lapses and this knowledge gives us responsibility under liability to remove [Ramos]." Steinbock, of course, knew Ramos had molested boys for years by that point. STRIKE TWO.

*Steinbock was the actual head of the Orange diocese for little less than a year, serving as the bridge between William Johnson and Norman McFarland, but what a brief period of fun he administrated over! He allowed admitted (Michael Pecharich, John Lenihan, Siegfried Widera) and diagnosed (Michael Harris) teen molestors to remain in ministry. THREE STRIKES! Can someone boot this demon out?

In 2002, Steinbock told the Fresno Bee in regards to all the controversies regarding his pedo-protecting ways over the years that, "I feel like the Lord Jesus when he was condemned unjustly, and I feel it is an honor to be united with the Lord in his whole passion. I'm not worried about defamation of character because I believe the Lord Jesus is with me."

"I think he's Manson-esque," counters John Manly, who has represented victims of the priests who raped that Steinbock let continue in ministry. "There is such a disconnect between the destruction of children's lives he brought to Orange and Santa Rosa. That statement is mind-boggling."

FUN FACT! Steinbock and Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown are classmates from St. John's Seminary in Camarillo.

E-mail: GARELLANO@OCWEEKLY.COM