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You have never failed to criticize Bishop Delaney, at every opportunity. Be my guest. He's had some very questionable dealings with some priest "friends" of his whom he moved into the Fort Worth diocese, who were found to have later molested young men.

He acted the same way Curtiss, and Myers, and two-thirds of the American bishops acted when faced with these accusations: they were more concerned about potentially abusive priests than they were about teenage children.

So, have at him. Just don't accuse me of covering for him, because I'm not covering for him. If you want to drag every newspaper article that's ever been written about him onto Free Republic, you're welcome to, and I'll agree with all of them.

But I am not responsible for Bishop Delaney; your past criticisms have always attempted to somehow link me to his corruptions.

I'm the one, BTW, who told him, in 1988, about one of the most senior monsignors in this diocese who made a pass at me when I was in the seminary (he kissed me on the lips; hell, my father never kissed me in his entire life, nor has any other man), and nobody at the seminary would believe that he would do such a thing; I was laughed at. Delaney didn't laugh, and when, a year later, the monsignor mocked a young priest from the pulpit for having a drinking problem, Delaney retired him the very next day.

Bishop Delaney's been very good to me, and he's now dying of pancreatic cancer. But, I won't defend someone who's looked the other way while children were being abused.

If I have seemed to suggest that you have given any support whatsoever to the molestations in the Fort Worth Diocese or anywhere else, let me set the record straight once and for all. I have never entertained the idea that you would do any such thing. Whatever disagreements we may have, I have no reason whatsoever to suspect that you approve of such misbehavior or that you are responsible for supervising your bishop just because you are a deacon.

I certainly acknowledge your heterosexuality as evidenced by your marriage, by your fatherhood and by the fact that nothing you have ever posted here has suggested that you are other than heterosexual. I understand that you favor equal rights before the secular law for those who are not heterosexual because you have posted that. If I have ever seemed to suggest that such a political position is evidence of any personal misbehavior, again that has never been my intention. If I understand correctly (and you have no obligation to respond to this) you left the seminary upon reflection, having determined that the obligation of celibacy in the sense of renouncing marriage and fatherhood was a burden which you did not wish to accept. I do not doubt that and I do not doubt that you are happy in the choice of marriage and fatherhood and still willing to accept the orders of deacon.

I do think that you are extremely unfair to both Curtiss and now Myers. I expect that you feel that you are not unfair to them. No one said we had to agree with one another.

I have certainly put Bishop Delaney on autowhack since reading the Dallas Morning News article of last June. Is it not true that one of the priests was brought into Fort Worth after substantial prior trouble in Rhode Island? At least as to that priest, it was not merely misconduct subsequent to arriving in Fort Worth. Further, despite the prior misbehavior in Rhode Island, that priest was appointed to run the diocesan Boy Scout program which amounts to putting a normal six-year old in charge of the candy shop.

I also concede, by the way, that B-Chan who is certainly a consistently conservative Catholic in Delaney's diocese has also urged charity towards Bishop Delaney and reported that Bishop DElaney has been quite kind toward the Anglican Use parish to which B-Chan belongs.

I hope that monsignor retired with false teeth and that the dentist was able to piece his gums back together to some extent after the administration of a little ad hoc justice.

Again, I certainly regret any inference you may have drawn that I believed you to be linked with the corrupt behavior of Bishop Delaney and, if, in anger, I have actually used language fairly reflective of such an unwarranted claim, you have my apology for such.

It is as fair to criticize you for making the most conservative (i.e., Catholic) bishops the particular target of your criticisms as for anyone to accuse me of making a point of going after the AmChurch liberals. I have so many more targets from which to choose that it may seem unfair. If we could reduce the number of child-abusing or abuse-covering bishops to one and that one were conservative I would gladly join in rousting him from office. I would point out that Bernard Cardinal Law was generally regarded as conservative and that Bishop Daily of Brooklyn is also regarded as conservative and that I have never had any compunctions about going after either one of them.

God bless you and yours.