"THE FUGITIVE III:" STARRING FATHER ADRIAN CRISTOBAL

Posted by Bob

Attention drama critics!  We are now witnessing the latest sequel of The Fugitive.  First there was a 60's TV series with David Janssen in the title role. The 1993 movie starred Harrison Ford. Neither the TV series nor the movie were exactly literary masterpieces but, so what--they did well at the box office. Action, excitement and suspense built on the dramatic staple of the chase seldom disappoints nor does the local iteration of The Fugitive plot.

David Janssen has been dead for almost 40 years and Harrison Ford is way too chungi to play the lead in an action movie. But, not to worry--Fr. Adrian Cristobal is now cast in the title role. 

As the neocat empire (which Cristobal helped found back about the time the movie came out) began to collapse around him, 

Cristobal beat a retreat to Canada, ostensibly to study canon law (perhaps a foreshadowing of his coming troubles?)  Next stop Phoenix. 

During his self-imposed exile in Phoenix two Guam men filed child sex abuse lawsuits against Cristobal causing him to take it on the lam. News reports tell us that when word of the child sex abuse lawsuits surfaced, Archbishop Byrnes ordered Cristobal to return to Guam a couple times but to no avail. Meanwhile the Arizona Republic reported that Cristobal had left for Guam, i.e. according to the Archdiocese of Phoenix.

Cristobal left his posting to Phoenix. Cristobal disobeyed his Archbishop's orders to return here. Cristobal's whereabouts are apparently unknown to Church authorities. Doesn't Cristobal's disobedience make him a fugitive?  No doubt it does but Cristobal is only following the behavior modeled by his former boss.