By Gustavo Arellano
Orange County Weekly
December 29, 2009
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/ex-cathedra/top-five-diocese-of-orange-tra/index.php
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| Heckuva job, Brownie! |
If you ever pay attention to apologists for the Catholic Diocese of Orange's sex-abuse scandal--you never should, but I'm just saying if God ever punishes you in that fashion--one of the points they'll repeat again and again is that most of the kiddie rapes and scandals happened long ago, long before Bishop Tod D. Brown came to town and cleaned up. After I stop laughing, I remind them that the biggest sin in the scandal isn't so much the rapes themselves, but the cover-up of the diocese's hierarchy, their absolute indifference to the scandal they wrought despite public shows to the contrary. Then, the apologists say I'm anti-Catholic, and more laughter ensues.
As this decade from hell closes, it's a perfect time to remember the Orange diocese's five worst, most callous transgressions pertaining to its sex-abuse scandal--and isn't it telling of how rotten the diocese is that none of them actually involves a sex crime? Heckuva job, Brownie! Here's the list, in order of vileness:
1. Bishop Brown's sex-abuse allegation: For most of this decade, Brownie has announced to anyone who'll listen that the Orange diocese under his watch was a transparent one, one forthcoming, truthful, and repentant. He even spent half-a-million bucks to make the point (see #3 on this list). All along, Brownie told no one that someone had lodged molestation allegations against him. His reasoning? This reality was "embarrassing," according to testimony he gave in a 2007 deposition. Tell that to Richard Delahunty, the priest Brown named in 2004 as being investigated for pedophilia before realizing the allegations were just that--allegations.
2. Gary McKnight invites a known rapist back to Mater Dei: Earlier this month, McKnight broke the record for most victories by a Southern California high school boys' basketball coach. None of the laudatory write-ups mentioned that earlier this decade, McKnight allowed his former assistant, Jeff Andrade, back on the Mater Dei campus--this despite the fact that Mater Dei officials had forced Andrade to resign in the 1990s for sexually violating a teenager, and despite those officials' insistence to McKnight that Andrade not be let on campus? Why is McKnight still coaching despite putting kids within the grasp of a sexual predator? That's right: because Mater Dei struck a deal with Satan long ago!
3. The Covenant with the Faithful: A den of hilarity from the moment Brown rented hotel space to make the announcement back in 2004 before a skeptical press corps. Spent half-a-million dollars for what was essentially a printed document taped at the front of every Orange County parish. Reenacted Martin Luther's theses-nailing for the news cameras despite Luther being a Protestant heretic. And the actual keeping of it? HAHAHAHAHA!
4. The disaster that was Peter Callahan: Callahan has been the lead attorney for the Orange diocese since the 1990s, if not earlier, which begs the question: Is Brownie insane, stupid, or both (our vote is on the latter)? Here's just one sentence from one 2008 story showing Callous Callahan's ineptitude:
The head lawyer for the Catholic Diocese of Orange sex-abuse scandal unwittingly revealed in September the sealed amount Bishop Tod D. Brown gave to a statutory rapist, barked at a sex-abuse survivor during a press conference, and did enough other wackiness to earn the title of one of our Scariest People late last year.
All this at $195 per hour!
5. The silence of 99 percent of Orange County's Catholics: The above four are mere pebbles in the gravel pit that is the Orange diocese (don't forget to read my all-time favorite story I wrote on any subject)--and still, Catholics go to Mass. Hey, Papists: Jesus, Mary and the saints is one issue, but why the continued supporting of Brown? May the coming decade open your eyes to this Great Deceiver. And Brownie: You can joke all you want to your associates about me needing a shrink, but those associates talk quite a bit....
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