Stories That Made a Difference [excerpt]

By Gustavo Arellano
Orange County Weekly
September 8, 2005

http://www.ocweekly.com/features/features/stories-that-made-a-difference/18589/?page=3

Catholic Diocese of Orange
“I Would Have Nothing to Offer” by Gustavo Arellano, Nov. 28, 2003

[See also other articles by Gustavo Arellano.]

When my editor asked if I would investigate the Catholic Diocese of Orange sex-abuse scandal in late 2003, I did what any good Catholic would do: I prayed. I asked God for a sign, any sign, and God provided one. A sex-abuse survivor visited my newspaper’s offices unannounced one afternoon. The survivor carried stacks of damning documents showing the relationship between former Orange County GOP chair Tom Fuentes and various characters in a pedophile-shuffling fiasco that had continued with little reprimand for 27 years.

Brown Photo by James Bunoan

For the next year and a half, I lived and breathed the scandal—taking time out to write a popular food column. Orange County survivors of priestly sex abuse credit the Weekly for exposing a church hierarchy that had long refused to hear their story or offer them a monetary settlement for their pain, even while Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown secretly drew up plans for a new multimillion-dollar cathedral down the street from South Coast Plaza and bought million-dollar homes for his priests. Church officials tried to discredit the Weekly at every opportunity—in parish bulletins and in public. But rarely did church officials speak to us directly. When we called him for comment on one story, diocesan spokesperson Joseph Fenton memorably screamed, “You must think I’m a complete and utter idiot!” But in January, Brown agreed to pay 90 victims of sexual abuse $100 million, then the largest settlement in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. He also released more than 10,000 pages of personnel files that showed what officials had long denied: church officials ranging from previous bishops to Pope John Paul II knew about the clerical sex abuse occurring in Orange County, and they did nothing to stop it.