Breaking: OC Diocese Lawyers Seek to Seal Bishop Brown Deposition

Over the weekend, attorneys with the firm of Manly, McGuire & Stewart deposed former Catholic Diocese of Orange Bishop Norman McFarland and current bishop Tod D. Brown as part of the firm's ongoing lawsuit against the Orange Diocese, Mater Dei High School, and former boy's basketball coach Jeff Andrade (click here for the Weekly's coverage of the lawsuit). Now, sources tell the Weekly that lawyers for the Orange diocese successfully convinced a judge to stop Brown's deposition midway through his testimony and obtained a temporary sealing order. On Thursday, they'll seek to turn the "temporary" label on the deposition into "permanent." All of this begs the obvious question: what did Bishop Brown reveal that would make him break No. 5 of His Excellency's much-ballyhooed Covenant with the Faithful? For those of you who forgot the theses, here it is:

"We will be open, honest and forthright in our public statements to the media, and consistent and transparent in our communications with the Catholics of our Diocese."

We'd love to include a quote here from either diocesan lawyers or normally loquacious lead plaintiff attorney John Manly, but both sides are under a gag order until this Thursday at 9 a.m., when they argue for and against the permanent seal in Judge Gail Andler's courtroom in Complex Civic Center 102. See you there!