bishop_olmsted


It’s a tough competition in a state with Joe Arpaio, John McCain and Russell Pearce. But the head of the local Catholic diocese, Bishop Thomas “The Turtle” Olmsted, is right up there as one of the most despicable figures in the state.

phxated_wymanE.J. Montini in the Republic noted this last month: That while the local Episcopal Bishop, Kirk Stevan Smith, has come out against SB 1070, Olmsted hasn’t said a word.

Olmsted’s counterpart in Los Angeles, Roger Mahony, has condemned the law in the most forthright terms, saying it used “German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques.”

From Olmsted? Nothing.

Olmsted’s also the guy who presumably orchestrated the diocese’s $50,000 donation to an anti-gay marriage campaign in Maine in 2008…

… and he’s also made it clear to administrators at St. Joseph’s hospital that he’ll scuttle their careers if they even think about approving an abortion—even to save the life of the mother.

Religious people are supposed to be compassionate and righteous, the enemies of cruelty and hypocrisy. Olmsted is more like Tony Soprano, overseeing a many-fingered operation that lacks morality and enforces its dictats brutally.

He deserves an appropriate street name; given his testudinal visage, as seen above, it seems “The Turtle” is most appropriate.