Hey, kids! Your favorite pedophile-tolerating, victim-ignoring, down-breaking Monsignor is back! Well, he may not be YOUR favorite. He's certainly Matt Cunningham's favorite.
The Diocese of Orange announced this week that Msgr. John Urell is expected to return as pastor of St. Norbert Church in Orange sometime after Easter. Urell was discharged from a Canadian psychiatric facility earlier this week, after suffering a so-called anxiety attack on the witness stand back in October. From the Reg:
Urell, who used to investigate clergy and other sex-abuse claims against the Diocese of Orange, was sent to Southdown Institute in Canada after breaking down during the middle of a July deposition in a Mater Dei sex abuse lawsuit. He was sent to the hospital for “acute anxiety,'' his lawyers then said.
Lawyers representing the plaintiff Christina Ruiz attempted to hold [Bishop Tod] Brown in contempt for sending Urell to the facility, arguing that Urell needed to finish pretrial testimony. The motion, though, was dropped when Ruiz and two other women settled their sex-abuse lawsuits against the Diocese for $6.685 million in October.
Urell used to investigate sex-abuse claims? I thought the problem was just the opposite.
Anyway, the return of the Misguided Monsignor has inspired me to come with the first line of a song. Any follow-up verses are welcome.
Well down in California, right in Orange Count-y
While he was givin' some difficult testimony
This ol' monsignor had a fit, and over he fell
The Southland knew this holy man as John Urell
To Canada and mental help our boy did flee,
But we knew that he would return eventually.
Go go … Go, Johnny go, go (to Canada)
