Conservative Catholics Target Bishop with Blue Binder of Blasphemy
By Gustavo Arellano
Orange County Weekly
July 1, 2004
[See also other articles by Gustavo Arellano.]
Every week, a group calling itself the Orange County Catholics gathers in a different member's house and recites the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel.
"St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the day of Battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the Devil," they whisper while kneeling on the floor.
They then speak about the sinner to whom they direct the 19th-century prayer: Orange Diocese Bishop Tod D. Brown, a man whom one former Catholic-school teacher claims is "duped by the Devil."
Each Orange County Catholic (OCC) member has a personal beef with Brown. Michael and Susan Teissere of Long Beach complain Brown ignored them two years ago when they pleaded with the bishop to defrock Father Rod Stephens, Michael's cousin, for supposedly being gay. One woman frowns at Brown's infamous Jan. 18 nailing of his "Covenant with the Faithful" outside the doors of Orange's Holy Family Cathedral that pledged diocesan transparency in sex-abuse cases. "Since when has it been faithful to emulate Martin Luther?" she scoffs. And almost everyone is uncomfortable that Brown serves on a national ecumenical and interreligious-affairs council. "And he aligns himself with moderate denominations, not the Jerry Falwells or Southern Baptists!" gasps another lady.
"He's not in union with Rome," the woman continues, as the room nods in agreement. "He's not faithful to Vatican teachings. I don't hate Bishop Brown. I pray for his soul; I pray for his conversion or removal." She then pauses for dramatic effect. "He's almost Protestant."
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Charges of liberalism against Brown appear antiquated more than 40 years after Vatican II. So it's easy to dismiss the OCC as a fringe group too obsessed with novenas and rosaries to wield much influence on church doctrine.
But what OCC lacks in money or people power—the group numbers no more than 10 members, and one of them is a baby—they make up for it through savvy and faith. Through press leaks of sensitive church documents, OCC members have started a sort of media war between newspapers eager to curry their services. The Los Angeles Times, The Orange County Register and the Weekly have published stories damaging to the diocese's image thanks to the group. But score this victory for the Weekly based on shared faith: members agreed to be interviewed for this story only because I'm a practicing Catholic.
"We want the truth out," says another member. Like all other OCC members, save the Teisseres, she requested anonymity for fear of diocesan retribution against her parish, which she also declined to identify. She wears a large silver crucifix around her neck, the body of Christ hanging limp off the cross. "As Pope Gregory the Great said, 'Better for scandals to arise than the truth be suppressed.'"
Now OCC members plan to take their campaign to "pull the curtain" on Brown beyond the local press and all the way up to the Vatican. The OCC strategy to oust Brown resides within a massive blue binder filled with hundreds of pages OCC members claim documents Brown's liberalism. A designated member guards its contents and brings the binder to each meeting, cradling it as one would a child.
After the prayer, most OCC meetings transform into a clip-gathering session. Included are dozens of newspaper articles regarding the ongoing clerical sex-abuse scandal. There are pictures of Orange County priests in the binders together with their purported male lovers—proof, OCC members insist, that a "lavender mafia" controls the diocese.
They also receive secret church correspondence from priests unhappy with Brown's regime, including a 2000 memorandum by Brown to his priests revealing that an article by a Bay Area priest that supported domestic partnerships "expresses very well my own thoughts on this subject." And the most recent addition is an open letter from the group to Brown blasting him for "promoting and enabling a foolish agenda of liberal infidelity" by promoting supposed liberals to influential diocesan posts.
"Monsignor [Wilbur] Davis is known for his disdain for orthodox practice," the letter states, referring to the director of the diocese's vocations office—which seeks to recruit new priests and nuns—and a familiar presence in Orange County social-activist circles. "We have received complaints that he is screening out vocation candidates who are openly orthodox. . . . This is the man you appointed to foster vocations in our diocese and that says a good deal about your judgment."
A request to diocesan spokesperson Father Joseph Fenton for an interview with Davis and Brown was never answered nor was a request for comment on OCC. However, in an article this month for the Los Angeles-based newspaper Los Angeles Lay Catholic Mission, Fenton dismissed conservative attacks against Brown as "full of innuendo and hearsay."
OCC members are unrepentant. "Our Lady of Fatima said, 'In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph,'" says the former Catholic-school teacher. "And we're confident we'll prevail."
The Orange County Catholics plan to mail their blue binder soon to the Vatican, hoping officials will discipline Brown—who recently returned from a visit to the Holy See—or install a more conservative bishop. In the meantime, they'll continue adding clips and pray to St. Michael the Archangel.
"[Church officials] write us off as reactionaries, rigid Catholics, intolerant. That's not the case," says the former teacher. "Either you're Catholic or you're not. If you believe in anything goes, fine. God bless you, I won't impose my views on yours. But I want what Christ thought—so don't change my church. And that's what Brown's doing. He's an enemy of the faith. But I want Bishop Brown to go to heaven—that's why I'm doing this."
Contact: garellano@ocweekly.com.
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