Comunicato urgente per gli Oratori U.S.A.

La Procura Generale, a seguito delle informazioni ricevute da due Congregazioni Oratoriane degli USA, comunica che non si deve dare fede a quanto affermato dal sedicente “Vescovo Arnold Orowae of the Diocese of Wabag in Papua New Guinea”, ed invita le Congregazioni a non lasciarsi ingannare.
 

Si trasmette la notizia inviata alla Procura Generale dalle due Congregazioni contattate:

I received a telephone call from a man claiming to be Bishop Arnold Orowae of the Diocese of Wabag in Papua New Guinea.

The man said that he was travelling by air from Papua New Guinea to … by way of the Philippines, having been informed of the death of his sister, presumably in…. He said that something had gone wrong, and that he was stranded in the Philippines, and was in need of help. He said that he knew you and Dr Alberto Bianco, and that you had both assured him that, should he ever need any assistance in Philadelphia, he should contact me.

He then said that his pre-paid telephone card was just about to run out of time, and insisted that I take down a telephone number and call him back immediately, so that he could explain what he needed me to do. Once he made sure that I got the number correctly, he repeated my first and last name, asked me to say again that I would call him back, and then abruptly the line went dead.

Of course the whole thing obviously seemed like a fraud to me, if for no other reason than that it is much easier to call Papua New Guinea from the Philippines than …! The “bishop” did not call back — I suppose they do not sell prepaid telephone cards in the Philippine airports! — and of course I did not call him. I am sure that if I had I would have ended up with an enormous telephone bill from the number he gave me to call — which, by the way, was 011 63 90 666 46 790.