Phoenix

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jun 14, 2003

Bishop O'Brien denied he covered-up for abusers, the DA says the bishop backed away from his admission. Then lawyer meets lawyer to sort out the misunderstanding, and everything is as clear as mud:

"We had a very good meeting with the county attorney's staff," said Jim Belanger, one of the bishop's lead attorneys. "We all agreed that we have a very workable agreement. "To the extent that there was any confusion or any ambiguity that was caused by any of the comments or the events of the last several days, that was very unfortunate and we are sorry that happened."

Excellent. Now if you could please tell us what the unambiguous statement is an unambiguous statement of, we can judge its merits for ourselves.

As far as I understand the bishop's side of the story, it is this: he threw a hot hand grenade into the kiddies' play-pen, but sincerely hoped it would either turn out to be a dud or that none of the shrapnel would make contact with a child. Therefore it is a calumny to suggest that he intentionally put children at risk. What can be fairer than that?