- Feb 5, 2002
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Bishop Kevin Vann, center, has spent more than three years pursuing a retraction and a monetary award over an email sent to 47 people in 2020. He contends the letter by a charity administrator damaged his reputation by suggesting he meddled unethically in the finances of an independent Catholic foundation.
Suzanne Nunn prays the rosary with friends each morning in her Mission Viejo home. From St. Timothy’s Catholic Church in Laguna Niguel, she brings Communion to the sick and homebound. She drives parishioners without transportation to Sunday Mass, decorates the altar for holidays and instructs adult converts in the tenets of the faith.
One observing the 68-year-old in her church volunteer work or at prayer in her regular pew might struggle to comprehend another role she plays in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange: the target of a protracted and expensive legal crusade by the bishop.
For more than three and a half years, Bishop Kevin Vann has pursued a libel lawsuit against Nunn over an email she sent to 47 people in 2020 about what she saw as his improper meddling in the finances of a Catholic foundation where she worked.
Vann, the leader of Orange County’s 1.3 million Catholics, has persisted in the litigation despite court defeats, including a stinging January ruling in which a Superior Court judge threw out his entire suit against Nunn and voiced support for her criticism of the bishop. The decision means that, unless an appellate court intervenes, the bishop will be responsible for Nunn’s legal bills, calculated at nearly $2 million by her attorneys in court filings requesting repayment.
Where that money would come from is unclear. So is the source of funding for extensive legal work on the bishop’s behalf by a Costa Mesa firm. A spokesman for the diocese declined to answer questions about the financing of the litigation, including whether it is being underwritten by Sunday collections or other donations from the faithful.
Continued below.
Angered by an email, Orange County bishop sued a parishioner for libel. The cost? Millions
Orange County Bishop Kevin Vann has pursued a libel lawsuit against a devout fellow Catholic for years, with steep financial and emotional costs.
www.latimes.com
