Catholic bishop of Phoenix arrested

FOXNEWS | 6/16/2003 | John Gibson

[sinkspur]

Roman Catholic bishop John O'Brien was arrested for leaving the scene of a fatal hit-and-run accident, and his car impounded.

[cherry]

" I am convinced that homosexuality is the "tie that binds" beyond ethnicity,race,sex,political party and/birth family."

I agree.....it all starts with homosexuality...imo of course...

I think what has happened is that a group of homosexual priests in order to preserve "their" secrecy have silently and sometimes not so silently been supportive of pedophiles....

aferall....you can't very well come down hard on a pedophile when he knows that you are a practicing homosexual......

when you start rationalizing your behavior, you start forgiving the unforgivable...

but I also think that there is a fine line between a homosexual....who by nature goes for younger specimens ( like heterosexuals) and a pedophile...who goes after children....

just how many victims have been female?

[B Knotts]

A 67-year-old bishop who dyes his hair

Something is just wrong with that picture, you know?

[Servant of the Nine]

How do we know that the books in the Bible today are all divinely inspired Scripture, and who got to make that decision?
And -- more importantly -- by what authority did they decide?

The Emperor Constantine in fact made the decision, at a time when he was not even baptized into the faith.
His authority was the combined legions of the Roman Empire.

Absolutely ridiculous! Did you read that looney bit in Tinfoil Christianity Monthly?

Actually it is in "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Gibbon.

So9

[B Knotts]

Well, I don't know every thread that sinkspur posts to, but in his defense, I don't think Bishop O'Brien is an especially orthodox or conservative bishop. I think he's more of a "moderate."

Perhaps that should be was more of a moderate, since I think his days as a bishop are...well...numbered.

[sinkspur]

Something is just wrong with that picture, you know?

I'm 52, with 3/4 of a head of gray hair, and DYEING it just never occurred to me.........

[sinkspur]

"The queen protesteth too much, methinks."

I'll leave it to you to be an expert on queens.

[St.Chuck]

The only thing I can think of that could possibly explain his behavior is that he didn't see what struck his car. At 40 mph it is possible, in dim light, and perhaps even distracted at the precise moment of impact, to miss what you had hit, so fleeting and instant is the collision.

Well...one can't help notice the crater in the windshield. Even if you were unsure of what had occurred, one would certainly be reasonable in desiring to know what it was that hit them and pull over, or even stop right then and there. Except for someone like Bishop O'Brien who has been publicly condemned in the press and internet forums, hounded by the prosecutorial arm of the law, and no doubt subjected to the criticism of the clergy in his charge and the laity he is to shepherd, if not his confreres. Could not have death threats been made to him? Certainly some of the bile as sampled on this thread could have made it's way in amplified form to the rectory of the bishop. O'Brien thought he was attacked! He didn't slow down or stop to render aid. He sped up to reach safety. If he wasn't aware of what he struck, it would be perfectly reasonable to believe that he was struck.

Of course, if that was his state of mind at the time, one would ask why he didn't report the incident to the police. I can only offer the response that he had been through a week dealing with the civil authorities, the following day, Sunday, was a busy one. The damage to the car can wait.

As far as the drunk charges: I don't know how far Buckeye was from the scene of this tragedy, but I don't know if the bishop would have had enough time to cop a buzz after mass. Those present at the mass, those who talked with him afterwards would be able to present a picture of his sobriety or lack of. An hour or hour and a half is not alot of time to get drunk beyond all sense of human responsibility IMHO. Does Bishop O'Brien have a reputation for drinking, Arizonans?

Anyway...just providing a plausable and charitable explanation.

[plusone]

The Bishop's car didn't have headlights?

[plusone]

There is no way to prove if the books of the Bible are divinely inspired. That is where faith comes in. If you choose to believe such, then that is your business.

[sinkspur]

Anyway...just providing a plausable and charitable explanation.

As is your wont, which puts you heads and shoulders above me in the charity department.

This man, Bishop O'Brien, signed a consent agreement with the DA, in which he admitted to shielding, protecting, and transferring sexual predators and not informing new parishes of their histories, then came out on the court house steps and said he didn't admit to anything!

You know, when I go to confession, I'm pretty hard on myself, because I have every reason to be. I want these guys to ADMIT IN PUBLIC what they've done, and just say, "I'm sorry," instead of equivocating and trotting out every sorry excuse in the book for why they did what they did.

Just "I'm sorry," then shut up.

A Catholic bishop has killed a man with his car, and that Catholic bishop is finished as the bishop of Phoenix.

Castrillon-Hoyos needs to be lining up the next episcopabili for the American southwest.

[Jeff Chandler]

>>...I don't know how far Buckeye was from the scene of this tragedy... <<

c 30-35 miles

>>I don't know if the bishop would have had enough time to cop a buzz after mass<<

Or before?


>>Those present at the mass, those who talked with him afterwards would be able to present a picture of his sobriety or lack of.<<


Unless he had enough to be impaired, but not enough to be apparent, especially to parishioners giddy in the presence of celebrity.

[plusone]

But remember the point of the parable about the Good Samaritan. The injured man was passed over by the rich man and the priest. It was the Samaritan who stopped and helped. So who was the injured man's 'neighbor' in this case? In this case, two cars left the pedestrian to die; a priest and (a rich man?). It was the third that stopped and called the police...

[St.Chuck]

Keating has been mouthing off too much. He needed to speak softly and carry a big stick.

Agreed. Keating was given a position of serious resonsibility and talked as if he was a....er....tinfoil-hat freeper.

[Jeff Chandler]

>>...that Catholic bishop is finished as the bishop of Phoenix. <<

I was considering starting a resignation pool before this happened. I figured it would take 3 months to a year, but his days as bishop are really numbered now.

[Jeff Chandler]

I was fuming at the characterization of his actions protecting the predators as "misjudgement". Putting compassion for and fraternity with the wolves over the safety of the sheep is not misjudgement, it is betrayal.

[St.Chuck]

I want these guys to ADMIT IN PUBLIC what they've done, and just say, "I'm sorry," instead of equivocating and trotting out every sorry excuse in the book for why they did what they did.

I don't think that is asking too much. While their reasons for acting in the manner they did, and making the decisions they did might be understandable, the complete refusal to acknowlege the harm caused is pretty reprehensible. May God have mercy on all our souls.

[B-Chan]

Strictly speaking, there is no way to "prove" (i.e. objectively demonstrate) anything at all.

For example: there is no way to objectively demonstrate that the universe you see, hear, smell, touch, and taste actually exists in any real way. Your subjective senses tell you it does, but subjective sense experiences are not objectively verifiable; the senses are often fooled. In dreams, for example: from the point of view of the dreamer, it's impossible to objectively distinguish the things one sees in the dream from the things one sees in so-called reality. We may assume that the world we experience when we are awake is in fact the Real World, but we cannot demonstrate that assumption to be true.

That is where faith comes in -- and it is that faith that lies at the root of all scientific reasoning. If you choose to believe that the Universe is real, then that is your business -- but don't kid yourself into thinking that you know it to be so, because you cannot. As Descartes pointed out, the only thing we can know to be objectively true is that which we perceive directly, without the medium of our subjective senses -- in other words, our objectively experienced self-awareness.

Each of us can know that he or she exists because we constantly and objectively experience ourselves existing: cogito ergo sum.

Think about that before deciding what's real and what isn't.

[ultima ratio]

"Catholics just get more press."

No the media actually has been protecting Catholic bishops for years and sympathizes with its homosexual coverup. The coverups had been going on for DECADES before the media broke the story in Boston--and thousands of boys had been raped and molested before it was exposed. In fact, the media is still colluding with the bishops in blaming the sex abuse crisis on "pedophilia" rather than on what it really and truly is: a problem of homosexuality in the priesthood. In return, the bishops go easy on abortion and pro-abortion politicians and ignore other hot-button liberal issues.

You also get the sickness wrong. It's not rebellion that's the underlying problem, it's bad leadership from the Vatican--from the Pope on down. Who elevated these losers to such lofty positions--men of such obvious moral and intellectual mediocrity and weak faith, men who for decades were too morally stupid to realize assigning well-known gay activist priests to work among adolescent boys over and over and over was a bad idea, men who were promoted and rewarded by a Pope who had never taken Church scandals very seriously and even now prefers to look the other way when the bad stuff hits the fan?

[B-Chan]

Well, who am I to judge the Holy Father?

There's much truth in what you say, I suppose, but precious little I can do about it -- so I'm going to do what I can in our parish and let Our Lady and her most chaste spouse, St. Joseph, do the heavy lifting. If they can't save the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit then we're all effed anyway.

Worrying is pointless. Prayer works. More rosary, less posery -- that's my motto as of now.

[razorbak]

Clinton WAS a Baptist. He and Hillary went to church in Washington D.C. at the Foundry Memorial Methodist Church. He was censured by the Southern Baptist Convention about 7 or 8 years ago.