As I predicted yesterday, Mitchell Garabedian, one of the lawyers for plaintiffs suing the Archdiocese of Boston, took the most negative possible tack on the archdiocese’s legal motion. To recap, Bishop Lennon went public on Sunday to say that in order to make sure the insurance companies have no reason to abandon their obligation to the archdiocese, the archdiocese had to pursue every legal defense, including claming First Amendment protections. Everybody knows that the motion will fail, but it’s the only way to make sure the process continues.
Some of the lawyers accepted the reality of the situation and reacted accordingly. Some media outlets did, too, including the Boston Globe. Of course, Garabedian looked at it in the most negative possible light and one local TV news station, WHDH, channel 7, (that’s the one I saw last night anyway; others may have, too) aid and abetted that view. They characterized the motion as another deception by a bishop and the Church, despite everything that the bishop, the diocese, and other plaintiffs’ lawyers said.
Remember Garabedian is the same guy who accused Bishop Lennon of being stained by the Scandal because his name was on the documents of a priest who was being laicized. You read that right: Lennon was helping remove a guy from the priesthood. How exactly does that stain Bishop Lennon? It doesn’t and it’s another example of grandstanding by Garabedian. The more I see and hear from him, the less and less I like him.
