MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun
By Jonathan Pitts
The Baltimore Sun
The head of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland apologized Wednesday for failing to recognize “warning signs” that Bishop Heather Elizabeth Cook — now facing drunken-driving and other charges in connection with a crash that killed a bicyclist — suffers from alcoholism.
“I regret that my sister in faith, Heather, apparently caused so much damage and suffering due to her disease of alcoholism, and [I’m] sorry I was unable to recognize warning signs of her illness,” the Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton said in a message to church members on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, a 40-day season of repentance.
Sutton added that he regretted shortcomings in the selection process by which Cook was made the No. 2 bishop in the diocese last year, despite an earlier arrest on a DUI charge. He pledged to work to “revise a process that failed us at some crucial points.”
Sutton’s statement was the most explicit apology a diocesan official has made in relation to the case.
Cook, 58, was indicted in Baltimore this month on 13 charges in the death of Thomas Palermo, a 41-year-old father of two young children. She is accused of hitting Palermo with her car Dec. 27 while texting and driving drunk along Roland Avenue in North Baltimore. She has not yet entered a plea.
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