Posted on 09/20/2004 8:35:12 PM PDT by Land of the Irish
A Tour of the Orange Diocese’s Most Transubstantiastic Homes
by Gustavo Arellano
Would you like to work for a company that, when facing millions of dollars in lawsuits, buys you a multimillion-dollar house? How about an employer who adds a second story to your already-massive abode even while the government forces it to pay $5.2 million to settle a lawsuit?
Think it can only happen at Halliburton? Well, think again: you can enjoy all of this if you’re a priest for the Catholic Diocese of Orange!
Yes, when Bishop Tod D. Brown became the spiritual head of Orange County’s 1.2 million Catholics in 1998, he abandoned the Church’s millennia-old practice of housing priests in humble rectories on parish grounds and began shacking up clergy in fancy digs few of the faithful could afford: quaint Balboa Island bungalows, beachside manses and other high-class abodes featuring three-car garages, walk-in closets and in-ground spas. In a confidential Sept. 3 memo written by Father Michael Heher to diocesan priests, Heher defended this practice by citing Brown’s policy of allowing priests "to live off-site, affording them more privacy and a place away from their work environment." And just last month, Brown admitted to purchasing a gated-community lot on which he plans to have built a multimillion-dollar mansion for himself near the proposed site of the $100 million Christ Our Savior Cathedral in Santa Ana (see accompanying story "Rooms at the Inn").
This is the same diocese currently pleading poverty in explaining why it can’t reach a settlement with sex-abuse victims and why it laid off 11 diocesan workers in the spring. Brown has repeatedly said he will not sell church property—parishes, convents, church halls, etc.—to free up more money for his operation. But what about the $2 million house whose sole tenant is retired Monsignor Lawrence Baird? Or the San Clemente complex mere minutes from the ocean? Considering there appears to be more than enough room at the inn for priests in the diocese’s 56 parish rectories, why doesn’t Brown consider a fire sale of its secular properties? In fact, if Brown begins with the following 10*, then the diocese could reap something like $8,837,323—very conservatively estimated—and get back to its main focus: paying out big-money settlements to victims of priestly rape.
Ping
Another scandal in mahoneyland.
This must be the same bishop who eliminated the Traditional Mass at Huntington Beach.
Mahoney is the Archbishop/Cardinal of the Los Angeles Archdiocese.
This is about the Diocese of Orange County. Really not one and the same.
I'm too depressed to click the link and look at the pictures of the mansions.
This is the same bishop who abruptly cancelled the Tridentine Mass at St. Mary's after 12 years, depriving several hundred faithful Catholics of their cherished liturgy. And for no good reason that I can discern.
Actually, Mahony and Brown are good friends, went to seminary together in Los Angeles, and were ordained out of the same class, in 1962.
They are two peas in a pod.
The good news is, they will come up for mandatory retirement at the same time, in seven years.
Seven LONG years.
After those 7 long years, when they do eventually come up for retirement, they'll probably be asked to stay on for 7 more.
I believe that the Diocese of Orange County is a sufragan diocese of the Los Angeles Archdiocese.
Mahoney is the Archbishop/Cardinal of the Los Angeles Archdiocese.
I believe that the seminary at Camarillo produced in the same class Mahoney, Brown and Levada.
Numerous other reprobate bishops in the southwest such as the guy from Santa Rosa are also said to be close associates.
As sad and pathetic as this story is, that was pretty funny.
Orange is a separate diocese.
I have long considered the Diocese concept, at least since Vat II, to be much like a McDonalds franchise, with the Bishops free to make of it what they will, and what they can get away with. Only in this case, religion is the reason to open the doors, not hamburgers. It pays well as long as you keep your nose clean.
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