Catholic Worker Would Welcome $90,000 Diocese Spent for PR Firm

Re “O.C. Bishop’s ‘Covenant’ Is Scandal Recovery Plan,” Jan. 16:

The Diocese of Orange has seen fit to hire a public relations firm to prepare its offering of penance and reconciliation at a cost of $90,000.

This comes two days after the article about the Catholic Worker of Santa Ana ministered by Dwight and Leia Smith and their staff.

These people are saints in our midst, implementing the message of the Gospel among the forgotten in our society. What enormous good the Smiths might have accomplished with that $90,000.

The covenant unveiled by [Bishop Tod D.] Brown is apparently necessary to restore confidence among the county’s Catholics so the diocese can launch its delayed capital campaign to raise more than $100 million for a new cathedral and other projects.

I recall learning in my catechism classes that pride is the gravest evil among the seven deadly sins. Perhaps all this public atonement is being offered up for the wrong sin.

Moira Niblo Obermeyer

Laguna Niguel