US: Dr Thomas O'Brien, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Phoenix, Arizona, has resigned after being charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident. His resignation has been accepted by Pope John Paul, writes Conor O'Clery New York
The spiritual leader of Arizona's 430,000 Catholics on Monday became the first US bishop to be charged with a felony, and faces more than three years in jail if convicted.
US District Attorney Richard Romley said yesterday that the bishop had stated he "had sipped some wine" before the accident on Saturday night and that he had since given vague and conflicting accounts of what had happened.
O'Brien was arrested at his residence on Monday after a witness to the accident helped identify his car, which was found with a caved-in windscreen. The bishop said he thought he had hit a dog or a bird.
Police said this was dubious as the accident victim, Mr Jim Reed, weighed 235 pounds and had been tossed over the bishop's Buick sedan.
The Vatican said the Pope had accepted the 67-year-old prelate's resignation under a church rule that makes a member of the clergy unsuited for the fulfilment of his office because of illness or another grave reason.
The bishop was already under strong pressure to quit after making a controversial deal two weeks ago with the US attorney's office that allowed him to avoid criminal charges of obstruction by agreeing to make diocesan reforms and admitting he had protected abusive priests.
The Arizona Republic was prominent among those calling for the bishop to step down even before the accident. It said his "credibility and authority" had shrunk "before mountains of evidence of priestly abuse - evil committed by men of God and protected by the hierarchy of the church, including Bishop O'Brien." Yesterday the newspaper said the bishop had no option but to resign after the "shocking and unbelievable" fatal hit-and-run accident.
Mr Romley said Dr O'Brien's resignation "will provide an opportunity for the Catholic Church to move beyond this."
The Vatican yesterday appointed Archbishop Michael Sheehan of Santa Fe, New Mexico, as apostolic administrator of the Phoenix diocese, pending the appointment of a new bishop.
The crisis in Phoenix comes the day before the start of a meeting of the US Conference of Bishops in St Louis, Missouri, to consider progress in dealing with sexual abuse cases. The two-day meeting has been overshadowed by the resignation on Monday of former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating as chairman of a panel of lay Catholics examining sex abuse in the Catholic Church, saying that some bishops acted like the Mafia in suppressing information about sex abuse.