Some Orr Followup

It occurred to me yesterday that the announcement of Orr's credible allegations from the archdiocese gives the impression that all the misconduct took place before Orr's ordination. However, I noted a more recent allegation in this post:

Her classmates told her that Deacon Orr had invited three of her male class mates (they were in high school) to his home to “fix” his computer. The students reportedly found child pornography on his computer but did not dare to inform police.

After hearing this from [the former student] I immediately submitted a tip to the FBI online. An officer got in touch with me the following day. I gave him all the information I had but of course he needs to come into contact with the individuals themselves.

I've noted in previous posts, and certainly these posts have come up in many web searches over the past month, that there was plenty of on line commentary from students at the school regarding Orr's preferences. I think it would be misleading to assume Orr's conduct ended when he was ordained.

This passage from the archdiocese's January 31 announcement:

In 2016, the then pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement, Fr. Christopher Phillips, acknowledged that he had received the complaint and had investigated it, finding it to be without basis. He did not inform the archbishop of the allegation, either at the time it was made or later when recommending Orr for ordination to the permanent diaconate.

suggests that allegations against Orr had finally built up to the point that Fr Phillips wound up in the hot seat with the archbishop. Since Fr Phillips was removed as pastor in early 2017, I think it's reasonable to assume this was the proximate cause of his removal, although Phillips had apparently not been a popular figure in the chancery for some time before then. I would not rule out that prior allegations about Orr, and whatever the relationship was between Orr and Phillips, factored into this in earlier times.

The Facebook complaints about Bp Lopes keeping Fr Phillips from celebrating at Orr's funeral mass suggest that Lopes was fully apprised of the archdiocese's concerns at the time the parish was transferred to the OCSP, and Lopes presumably concurred with the judgment.

However, I'm now told that all the Facebook posts about Dcn Orr on the OLA page have been deleted. I visit Facebook only rarely -- there's a respectable body of opinion that suggests Twitter and Facebook can actually lower IQ -- but a brief check of the OLA page suggests there's a real Phillips cult of personality at that parish. This is very sad.