Look, does anyone here honestly think O'Brien would have left another human being to suffer or die if he had understood what had happened? His response has been reported that he thought maybe someone had thrown a rock at his car. An understandable conclusion, it seems to me, if you've been the object of a lot of public criticism, anger and threats lately. I'm not making excuses for O'Brien or any of the other church leaders but I think even our forum has become part of this national mood to lynch accused priests, who, by the way, are still half as likely to commit criminal offenses than any of the other professions. A little looking within wouldn't hurt even for the righteous.
This sounds like an excuse to me.
The greatest sin was not the abuse, Havisham. Protestant ministers abuse kids too.
The greater sin was the covering-up and transferring of abusive priests without telling new parishes that "father" was a sexual predator.
Abusing one child is the priest's fault; abusing two children is the priest's AND the bishop's fault!
YES...particularly if he had been drinking. But this is not related to O'Brien per say, people do stupid things.
No, I don't. A terrible tragedy happened. I'll wait for the full set of facts to come out before making judgements.
Knowing this man's tendency to hide from unfavorable media (and not very good at that, I might add)....sadly, yes.