The people of the Diocese of Palm Beach, Florida are frustrated at losing Bishop O’Malley their fourth bishop in five years, but they also understand that Boston needed him more. As another article I read today said, Boston has become the weathervane of the Scandal in the US: people will use Boston to gauge whether things really are improving in the US or not.
While the number of abuse cases in Palm Beach have been more modest, the kind of problems they had are pretty bad. It was the only diocese to have two successive bishops resign after being accused of abuse. What I don’t understand is why O’Connell, the second one, accepted the position even though he knew he had this case in his past. Did he think no one would find out? How naive can people be?
From their accounts, while O’Malley wasn’t there long enough to make a lot of headway into the problems of the diocese, he made a start and the people say it was a positive one.
