SoCal's other wayward bishop [Tod D. Brown makes Cardinal Mahony look like a saint]

latimes.com ^ | October 1, 2007 | Gustavo Arellano

[Alex Murphy]

In early 2004, in front of dozens of reporters and parishioners, Bishop Tod D. Brown of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange nailed a "Covenant with the Faithful" to the door of the Holy Family Cathedral in the city of Orange. This publicist-cooked document contained seven "theses" vowing to create a new era of openness in a diocese long plagued by leaders who protected pedophile priests at the expense of innocents. "We will be open, honest and forthright in our public statements to the media," the fifth thesis promised, "and consistent and transparent in our communications with the Catholics of our Diocese."

But time and time again, Brown has shown that his emulation of Martin Luther was little more than hot, sulfuric air. This was never more apparent than last month, when his excellency decided that the covenant applies to everyone but himself and his friends.

In Orange County Superior Court, church lawyers tried to seal a deposition Brown gave for a civil lawsuit against the Orange diocese and its scholastic jewel: Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana. The plaintiff in the case, a former student, alleges that church officials ignored her abuse at the hands of a coach for Mater Dei's powerhouse boys' basketball program during the mid-1990s (the coach, Jeff Andrade, admitted to having sex with her).

Depositions have continued for more than a year, yet none were more explosive than Brown's. In it, the bishop admitted that someone had accused him of sexual abuse while he was a priest in Bakersfield in the 1960s, but that he never publicly disclosed the allegation because it was "embarrassing."

Brown also revealed that he allowed Msgr. John Urell (a popular priest at St. Norbert's in Orange) to seek psychological treatment in Canada....