{"id":8142,"date":"2004-01-19T08:34:57","date_gmt":"2004-01-19T08:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/the_seven_theses.html"},"modified":"2004-01-19T08:34:57","modified_gmt":"2004-01-19T08:34:57","slug":"the_seven_theses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/the_seven_theses.html","title":{"rendered":"The Seven Theses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bishop Brown of Orange nails statement to door<\/a><\/p>\n

Turning to an ancient method of public notice, Bishop Tod D. Brown on Sunday nailed to the doors of Holy Family Cathedral a document proclaiming a commitment by the Diocese of Orange to help heal the wounds caused by the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal.<\/p>\n

The “Covenant With the Faithful,” a seven-point promise to rebuild trust by fostering an era of honesty, humility and power-sharing, will be displayed at the cathedral for “as long as it takes” to accomplish its goals, said Father Joseph Fenton, spokesman for the diocese.<\/p>\n

All 56 parishes in the diocese will receive a copy, and it will also be affixed to their church doors, harking back to a medieval ritual in which important proclamations were posted where townspeople were certain to see them<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m sorry. I can just imagine the diocesan staff meeting that dreamed this up. <\/p>\n

Here’s the diocese’s PR release on the matter<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s a more jaundiced view of the Orange Diocese’s actions<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Read the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops\u2019 (USCCB) recent audit of the Diocese of Orange and you\u2019ll get the impression that all is hunky-dory in a church rocked by the metastasizing priest-boy sex scandal.<\/p>\n

The report, part of the USCCB\u2019s nationwide examination of every Catholic diocese\u2019s sex-abuse policies, praises Orange officials for implementing an “outstanding outreach program and excellent written documentation relating to” molestation cases. It cites as particularly noteworthy the 2002 establishment of a sexual misconduct oversight and review board consisting of “highly educated, diverse, and respected members of the community.” The USCCB was so impressed with the county Catholic Church that it was one of only three California dioceses (along with San Jose and San Francisco) to escape criticism. <\/p>\n

But if you talk to the victims who should benefit from this clean bill of pedophilic health, you\u2019ll hear a different verdict.<\/p>\n

“The audit\u2019s conclusions for the Orange Diocese was nothing more than a self-congratulatory exercise on behalf of the bishops,” argues Joelle Casteix, a 33-year-old Corona del Mar resident. “It\u2019s like congratulating a parolee for not committing any crimes but not knowing that they had killed five people three weeks beforehand.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bishop Brown of Orange nails statement to door Turning to an ancient method of public notice, Bishop Tod D. Brown on Sunday nailed to the doors of Holy Family Cathedral a document proclaiming a commitment by the Diocese of Orange to help heal the wounds caused by the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal. The “Covenant…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Seven Theses - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/the_seven_theses.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Seven Theses - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bishop Brown of Orange nails statement to door Turning to an ancient method of public notice, Bishop Tod D. Brown on Sunday nailed to the doors of Holy Family Cathedral a document proclaiming a commitment by the Diocese of Orange to help heal the wounds caused by the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal. The “Covenant…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/the_seven_theses.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2004-01-19T08:34:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Seven Theses - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/the_seven_theses.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Seven Theses - Via Media","og_description":"Bishop Brown of Orange nails statement to door Turning to an ancient method of public notice, Bishop Tod D. Brown on Sunday nailed to the doors of Holy Family Cathedral a document proclaiming a commitment by the Diocese of Orange to help heal the wounds caused by the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal. The “Covenant…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/the_seven_theses.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2004-01-19T08:34:57+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/the_seven_theses.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/the_seven_theses.html","name":"The Seven Theses - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2004-01-19T08:34:57+00:00","dateModified":"2004-01-19T08:34:57+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/the_seven_theses.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/the_seven_theses.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/01\/the_seven_theses.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Seven Theses"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}