Down in flames

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jun 02, 2003

Surprise. The Bishop of Phoenix lied. Surprise. Faced with prison, he cuts a deal for immunity and admits the cover-up:

Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien has acknowledged that he covered up allegations of sexual abuse by priests for decades and will relinquish some of his power as head of the Phoenix Diocese to avoid possible criminal indictment, The Arizona Republic has learned. O'Brien's dramatic admission and his decision to surrender some authority came in a five-page agreement the bishop signed last month when Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley threatened to bring him before a grand jury.

We're on a learning curve here, so we can put this behind this and move on, right? Right?

The Phoenix Diocese has two vicars general, Monsignors Richard W. Moyer and Dale J. Fushek. Moyer is chief financial officer for the diocese and most likely to get the new post since Fushek acknowledged last year that he paid $45,000 to settle a sexual harassment claim filed by a male parishioner.

OK, Dale has issues. But when you look the larger picture you see that the really important things are still in place. John Allen reports from Rome that the proposal to exclude gays from the seminaries is dead in the water.