Another settlement

Should people living within the boundaries of the Diocese of Orange County take this news into consideration when the next annual Bishop's appeal is made?

A former student at St. John the Baptist School who claimed that a priest there sexually abused him in the 1990s has settled his lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange.

The terms of the diocese's settlement with plaintiff Jonathan Kirrer, now 24, were not disclosed. His attorneys objected to publicizing them, though the archdiocese didn't.

The Orange County District Attorney's Office is investigating Kirrer's claim that the Rev. Denis Lyons sexually abused him in 1994 and 1995.

Kirrer is pleased with the settlement and hopes to put the civil case behind him, said his attorney, V. James DeSimone.

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Archdiocese spokesman Ryan Lilyengren said the settlement money will come partly from insurance money and an administrative account. The agreement would not affect spending for the schools or the parishes, he added.

Unless the diocese has a magical printing press, the money had to be taken from something. Maybe people who were worthwhile of help from the diocese.

Church and diocese finances are rarely made known to the faithful. That's till a scandal breaks out. Like two Diocese of Palm Beach priests who embezzled perhaps over a million dollars from the Parrish they ran. There was also this bank scandal the Vatican got itself involved in. Laundering money for the mafia is God's work. As is cutting off the insurance to a mother on pregnancy bedrest.

Lyons has been excommunicated from the church, Lilyengren said, but it is unclear whether the Vatican will defrock him.

Lyons gets excommunicated for molesting boys. Then tell me why the stepfather in this story doesn't have the same done to him? Costing the Catholic Church money Embarrassing the Roman Catholic Church is probably a greater sin than getting a nine-year-old girl pregnant.

Consistency or logic thy name isn't the Roman Catholic church.