How much worse can it get? The Diocese of Spokane is asking parishes to raise $10 million toward legal settlements for clergy sex-abuse. That’s got to be a tough sell.
The diocese declared bankruptcy because of the lawsuits and now must pay $48 million to victims in 177 claims of abuse. Now $10 million falls on the the 95,000 parishioners and 82 parishes. That’s $105 per person or $121,951 per parish on average. That’s over and above what the diocese itself has to raise. The diocese needs to come up with $6 million; independent Catholic agencies like Catholic Charities and children’s homes need to give another $6.5 million. Insurance will cover the rest.
Think of all the corporal works of mercy that could be accomplished with that money, the children that could be served, the poor that could be helped. Think of all the capital improvements that could be made in parishes, the ministries that won’t happen.
Some parishioners are angry at Skylstad for taking the diocese into bankruptcy, while others balk at paying bankruptcy lawyer fees. Still others question why they should pay for priests who molested children decades ago in other parishes, Borchardt said. The pastor has evoked the parable of the good Samaritan, who stopped to help a man who had been beaten and robbed as others looked the other way.
If the Devil were looking for a way to seriously undermine the work of the Church in the world, he couldn’t have found a better way. In one fell swoop, he undermines the confidence in the priesthood and bishops and then strips parishes and charitable agencies of badly needed funds to do the good work of worshipping the Lord, forming the people in faith, and carrying out the corporal works of mercy.
It truly is the butcher’s bill.
Technorati Tags: Catholic | Spokane | sex-abuse | lawsuits | settlements |
Meanwhile the Catholic world has been told nothing about the lifestyle of the victims. If parishioners are being asked to fork over cash like Good Samaritans, the least they could expect is to know who they are paying. Not even the Good Samaritan helped a victim blindly.
Given the sexual and financial abuse on a grand scale that we have been victims of through the agency of our bishops, why would any Catholic in the pew trust the bishop to actually use the money for which he claims he is collecting it? If I were a Catholic in Skylstad’s Diocese, I’d be sending my financial contribution to a diocese where the teachings of the Church have been and are upheld.
Wha? Why *on earth* do CC and children’s homes have to pony up for this? That is just about insane.
I have a great idea for Bp Skylstad. He and his clergy – and especially the former clergy who were implicated in this mess – can go from parish to parish selling candy bars like Boy Scouts or schoolchildren and raise the money their own selves. They could also go around Spokane and do this. That way, they’d offer the donors somethin of value and be doing a little work, which might be a little embarrassing, sure, but they could offer it up for the spiritual good of the victims, abusers, and the people of Spokane. AND they’d be raising the money without just putting out a hand and expecting the sheeple, as always, to just hand it over, which is extremely insulting and, as Dom says, takes away valuable funds from corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
In my diocese it was the children’s home, or more specifically the orphanage for boys, that provided the victims. One wonders if it was in Bishop Skylstad’s diocese as well.
If Catholics contribute blindly to the victim fund, do they have any guarantee that their donated dollars will not be used to further a life of sin on the part of the victims who will receive those funds? If they do not have assurance, can they morally contribute to such a fund? Is it moral to contribute financially to the furtherance of a sinful life?
I am curious how the “lifestyle” of the victims bears on their eligibility to receive damages. I know of no tortious damages that depend on the current virtue of victims of past tortious wrongs.
These monies are settlements of claims for damages. They are not charitable donations to the victims to further their current virtuous or sinful lives, as the case may be, but legally owed based on *past* torts committed against them. So the question of what the victims will do with the money is utterly irrelevant to the morality of paying them to settle the damages they incurred.
I understand that, Liam. But what you refer to is the law of the land, while what I refer to is the Law of God. Remember that passage about serving God and Mammon?
“I am curious how the “lifestyle” of the victims bears on their eligibility to receive damages. I know of no tortious damages that depend on the current virtue of victims of past tortious wrongs.”
I don’t know about that, Liam. In at least some cases (those which with I happen to be familiar), the victim’s lifestyle bears directly on their eligibility for damages, in that their lifestyle issues are trotted out as evidence for the plaintiff’s claim of abuse. The fact that the plainiff has a history of drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, etc. is ‘proof’ that their claims of abuse are true – why else would they be this way?
In my humble opinion, the pastor’s use of the parable of the good samaritan is a poor one for making his case. The good samaritan did not throw a bag of gold at the wounded man; he took him up, arranged for his care. It is too much to expect our legal system to handle these people in a loving and truly charitable way; but the Church is another story. True charity involves prudence, and throwing a huge financial windfall at people whose proof of claim is that they have these problems does not seem to me to be loving, charitable or prudent.
Sorry for the double post, Dom. I would like to correct myself. The pastor’s choice of the parable of the good samaritan is a poor one if, in his analogy, the beaten, bleeding and robbed man refers to the claimants. If the beaten, bleeding and robbed man refers to Mother Church, then he does, I think, have a point.
Carrie
Under the law of God, the Church owes beaucoup amends to these people its ministers injured through its failure to supervise sufficiently and by which the Church forfeit its credibility to manage their lives, as it were. That’s something the relevent bishops and underlings will have to account to God for. And the flock shares the temporal pain of that. Protestants would not understand that, but Catholics should better understand the temporal residue of sin by the Church’s members. This is part of that.
I’m not disagreeing with your argument, Liam. The state makes rules and enforces them with its courts and police. That is the law of man.
Then there is the law of God. Does the law of God permit a Catholic to contribute materially to the sinful destruction of a soul?
The judgments are not against Catholic family assets. The judgments are against the organization called the Roman Catholic Church, specifically the diocese. That puts the diocesan assets on the line. But it does not put the Catholic conscience on the line. The Catholic conscience answers to a higher authority than the law of the land. The Good Semitarian acted out of charity, not out of obligation. The guilt trip being imposed appeals to charity, not to legal responsibility. Catholics in the pew have no legal responsibility imposed on them. Do not make the bishop’s problem your own.
When we make charitable contributions, we are obliged to make some effort to assure that our dollars do not go to oppose God’s work or God’s laws. Would you contribute to Planned Parenthood? Why not?
If we argue that we must set our conscience aside and pony up, we are doing nothing different from what the bishops have done…that is use expedient arguments to further our own material interests. In this case those material interests concern the preservation of diocesan assets. Pay a dollar into this “Good Samitarian” fund, and you potentially pay a dollar into the destruction of a soul.
We need to know specifically to whom our charitable dollars are going and what they potentially could be used for. Are there guarantees they will not be used to further the gay lifestyle and oppose the Church, for instance?
In good conscience we cannot contribute charitable dollars to the moral destruction of another individual, no matter what the law of the land says. We serve a higher authority. Let’s not compound the moral degeneracy.
I don’t know what else Bp. Skylstad can reasonably do. He’s not really responsible for most of this; he inherited most of it from his predecessor, a nasty piece of work.
This isn’t so much going to pay for legitimate needs of suffering victims as it is blood money. There are some genuine victims, and I don’t mean to marginalize them. But some of the claims that are being paid off are just plumb silly. My pastor was railroaded a year and a half ago for a Spokane diocese claim that would probably be laughed out of court if it weren’t part of this bankruptcy. And as for the amounts, well, I wish I could get fifteen grand for having seen a priest’s john thomas forty years ago.
But the blood money must be paid, and if the parishes won’t pony it up, what is Bp. Skylstad going to do? He’s already selling off diocesan assets, and if he has to close parishes because of this, it will be a lot worse than in, say, Boston. (Take a look at a map of Eastern Washington. The distances between parishes is a lot greater than in an urban diocese. How do you get to Mass if the nearest parish is hours away?)
Bp. Skylstad is doing the best he can with an impossible situation. Most of the “victims” aren’t looking for counseling and therapy; they want revenge. And cold hard cash. And if they have to bleed it from ordinary parishioners, well, we probably deserve it for being Catholic.
Excuse me, but what Carrie has said is just plain outrageous. The logical implication of what she has said is that it would be perfectly Ok to cheat, rob and swindle homosexuals, communists, alcoholics and drug addicts in order to prevent them promoting material evil and provided that we present the stolen money to good causes.
IF these people are genuine victims (and the presumption at this stage has to be that they are) then compensation is due to them in justice and we have no right to deny it to them. If they then spend it on vice and the corruption of public morals the responsibility is partly theirs and partly the fault of the original criminals and their enablers.
Hibernicus
More to the point, paying such damages does not constitute formal or even close material cooperation with such future uses of the monies, because the payment of damages relates solely to *past* injury not how the money might be used. The argument Carrie raised is a logical and moral red herring.
The obligations the entail from sinning against another person (for example by sexually abusing them, by failing to properly supervise those who did, by failing to proactively seek to remedy the situation justly, et cet.) are in *NO* way morally contingent on the virtue of that victim.
I can just see the confessional conversation:
Penitent: Father, I stole $ from N.
Confessor: How will you make restitution to N?
P: But N might use the money for bad purposes!
C: Oh, OK, you can ignore your moral obligation for restitution. [Wrong Answer]
C: Your moral obligation for restitution is not contingent on speculations (however informed they may be) about N may make choices under his/her free will. That will be for N to account to for God, not you. So that’s no excuse.
Not even the Good Samaritan helped a victim blindly.
Sure he did.
The pastor’s choice of the parable of the good samaritan is a poor one if, in his analogy, the beaten, bleeding and robbed man refers to the claimants. If the beaten, bleeding and robbed man refers to Mother Church, then he does, I think, have a point.
Sure he does. And I think it’s a good one, and I’m glad you double-posted.
That said, what if he was referring to the claimants? I still think it’s a good point.
Liam, you do realize that you have just claimed that the poor sucker in the pew who had no power to alter what the bishops did is a sexual abuser. Think about what you are proposing. The laity do not have to make restitution. Rather, they are being called upon to be generous with their dollars, and the reason they are being asked to pony up is that the bishops do not want to sacrifice real estate. There is ample money to pay the settlements if some property is sold.
The Catholic faithful in Spokane are not guilty of anything except being Catholic. This request for funds is not a judgment imposed because of wrongdoing on the part of the Catholics in the pew. This request for funds is a request for charitable giving, which is not the same thing at all.
To suggest that my argument can be used by the chancery to avoid paying the settlement is ridiculous and a red herring.
“The pastor has evoked the parable of the good Samaritan, who stopped to help a man who had been beaten and robbed as others looked the other way.”
The analogy doesn’t work if the man refers to the claimants because the good samaritan anointed and bandaged the man’s wounds, put him on his own beast, took him to an inn and paid the inkeeper for his care. The good samaritan did not throw a bag of gold into the man’s ditch. For Liam, throwing the bag of gold into the ditch is simple justice; the court has put a monetary value on their pain, and in justice that value must be paid: reparation made, case closed. I don’t happen to think that is simple or just, but even if we grant that, I’m not sure how that judgement extends to the laity. The pastor in the post doesn’t seem to see it either, since he has not appealed to justice, but to charity. So – let’s say the Samaritan offers his help to the man in the ditch, and the man spits in his face and says to heck with you, give me your wallet – is the Samaritan required by charity to give it to him?
BTW, Liam, I was under the impression that we are required to make reparations for PERSONAL sins against justice and truth. That isn’t Carrie in the confessional, or even B. Skylstad. Isn’t the point of this post that the laity is being asked to foot this bill?
This discussion has raised a number of questions which I have blogged here.
Carrie’s point was, it seemed to me (and obviously not only me), to be directed at the payment of any money by anyone to the victims if the victims might not use that money in virtuous ways. It would be a peculiar point if her moral quandary were limited as she subsequently have it limited.
I agree that the faithful at large per are certainly did not formally or materially cooperate with the primary (abuse) and secondary (negligence and cover-up) sins at issue in the abuse scandal. There are those who insist the fact of being actively Catholic and contributing to the diocese would constitute material cooperation, but I am utterly unpersuaded of that.
That said, as Catholics share in the glories of the saints corporately, we also share in the temporal consequences of sin by members of the Church whose sins entail obligations on the Church corporately. That’s in the nature of the Church. The bishop has it in his prudential but binding authority to dictate how those obligations will be met – we can criticize the lack of prudence (and I would do so here) but that does not make it less binding unless we become Protestants, does it?
Again, my critiques and scenarios before this point were directed at an understanding of Carrie’s point that appeared to be much more general in nature.
The thing is, Liam, I don’t have liability insurance to cover me if the courts in my diocese determine that I am financially culpable for the misdeeds of priests and the cover-up by bishops. It never occurred to me that I would need it. Do you?
Is the Church legally a corporation or a partnership?
I think the answer to that question could possibly be derived out of this Good Samaritan fund at some time in the future. Are you Catholics out there prepared to put the deed to your house behind your charitable gestures, or are you taking it for granted that your liability will be limited to just this one-time donation of $105 per person? Because I don’t see any legal limitation on the depth of the laity’s pockets in the present situation.
This had better be formally declared a charitable fund before anyone puts his cash into the fund. And as a charitable fund, the moral implications kick in. Personally, I would not contribute one red cent!
“The laity do not have to make restitution. Rather, they are being called upon to be generous with their dollars, and the reason they are being asked to pony up is that the bishops do not want to sacrifice real estate. There is ample money to pay the settlements if some property is sold.”
I disagree. First, there isn’t ample money to pay. Diocesan property is already being sold off. But second, it is the responsiblity of the laity to pony up in this case. Not because they’ve done anything wrong, but because it’s our Church. Whatever the clergy have done done, they’re still part of us, if that makes sense. Whether we layfolks caused the situation or not, we’re responsible for correcting it. And if that means paying off the vultures, well, it’s distasteful, but it’s still up to us.
(I’m saying “we” here, but I’m not in Spokane diocese. I’m in the one next door, though, and we’re getting some of the fallout from it.)
Regardless of her other opinions, Carrie brings up an interesting legal question: If someone gives to this settlement fund, what kind of liability and responsibility for the diocese’s legal problems is the individual assuming?
Joel, it may be our Church, but does that mean we must assume responsibility for the misdeeds of everyone in it? If your Catholic neighbor is sued are you required to pony up for his settlement? More to the point, if the janitor at the chancery gets drunk and kills someone with his car while driving to or from work are all Catholics supposed to pitch in for the settlement? Is it different if it’s a bishop or priest?
“Is it different if it’s a bishop or priest?”
Yes, I think it is. The clergy are more than just pewmates; they represent the Church, both to God and to us. They give up everything else to serve both God and us, and I think it has to work the other way as well. They are responsible for our spiritual well-being, and we are responsible for their temporal care. We can’t hang them out to dry just because some of them did loathesome things.
When I married my wife, I ended up paying debts her ex-husband had racked up years ago. It came with the territory. When I entered the Church eight years ago, I took on the same sort of commitment. I’m not a member of the Church only insofar as it involves me directly; I’m a member of the whole Church, for good or ill. I didn’t incur any of the debts in this settlement, but it’s still incumbent on me to help pay them.
We are used to the corporate model when thinking of legal settlements with large entities. Director of X corporation does dirty dealing and finds himself in court. The financial settlement devolves on the corporation to the extent that the corp. assets will cover the liability. When the corp. funds run out, the plaintiff is out of luck. The assets of the stockholders and the employees are not subject to grab.
But the Church is not a corporation, as Joel points out. So what is the legal status of its members? If members of the Church think and speak as Joel thinks and speaks, we are indeed all financially responsible for whatever legal penalties are imposed on the Church.
Now as you think about that, keep in mind that human rights law is moving closer all the time to declaring homosexuality a protested status. Our doctrine will come into direct conflict with this protected status. Can we be sued for upholding our doctrine? If we can, can each and every one of us find our personal assets subject to judicial raiding? This question is being raised at the same time that the Catholic Church is being marginalized within American society.
At the rate things are going, we will not have popular opinion on our side when we oppose homosexuality, women’s ordination, opposition to abortion and birth control. Lots and lots of lawsuits might conceivably be raised as a result of persons perceived infringement of their human rights by the Catholic Church. Priests who are doing precisely what we would ask of them to do may find themselves on the wrong side of the law. When judgments are made, are we all going to find ourselves in the poor house after trying to pay them off?
I think very dangerous precedents are being set here.
Dom
Carrie expressly conceded the *legal* question early on and said her question was purely *moral* (implicitly, about cooperation). Now all of as sudden she’s veering back to the legal question. Well, that’s convenient but it will guarantee a mish-mashed set of answers.
The faithful don’t have a direct *legal* (either civil or canonic) obligation, and if the legal settlement agreed to by the bishop includes the bishop *asking* for their donations, they still don’t have a *civil legal* obligation but they may have either a moral obligation or even a preceptual obligation under Church law depending on if the request is worded in some form of command, however conditional.
In any event, would someone please redefining the question out of existence?
Liam there are two considerations here depending upon which way this contribution from the laity is going to spin. From the point of view that this request for funds is a request for charitable giving, there is the question of the moral obligation not to contribute to the downfall of others.
From the legal point of view, there is the question of whether the pockets of the laity are going to be considered vulnerable to lawsuits since the “Church” has not been defined by legal precedent so far as I am aware. The state has not been in the habit of suing the Church until now.
“From the legal point of view, there is the question of whether the pockets of the laity are going to be considered vulnerable to lawsuits since the “Church” has not been defined by legal precedent so far as I am aware. The state has not been in the habit of suing the Church until now.”
Actually, the Spokane case has been an exercise in giving the Church a legal definition. Initially, it was ruled that the inndividual parishes’ property was actually owned by the diocese, annd could be taken into account, but that was overturned.
I hadn’t noticed until I went looking for that information how much the local newspaper stood to gain from the bankruptcy. The Spokesman-Review has been covering the whole thing with a heavy bias against the Church, more than just the usual media liberalism. As it turns out, the same family that owns the paper just bought the chancery as a result of the bankruptcy. It’s not the first time the Cowles family has smeared public figures to gain leverage in real estate deals.
At the rate things are going, we will not have popular opinion on our side when we oppose homosexuality, women’s ordination, opposition to abortion and birth control. Lots and lots of lawsuits might conceivably be raised as a result of persons perceived infringement of their human rights by the Catholic Church. Priests who are doing precisely what we would ask of them to do may find themselves on the wrong side of the law. When judgments are made, are we all going to find ourselves in the poor house after trying to pay them off?
I think very dangerous precedents are being set here.
I don’t know, Carrie. I’ve been trying to follow your reasoning but can’t quite seem to do so. I’m sure that’s my fault, not yours. But the post I quoted from really puzzles me.
Would you consider that what you’re calling “dangerous precedents” are actually opportunities?
What would be dangerous about landing in the poor house for the reasons you cited?
Call me a materialist if you must, but I’d prefer to live in my own home to living in the poorhouse. It’s bad enough that the Church is being fleeced. Since the laity has done nothing wrong, it is a matter of injustice that they be expected to pay a court settlement.
But Kelly, don’t let my opinion stop you from doing so if you wish.
“Since the laity has done nothing wrong, it is a matter of injustice that they be expected to pay a court settlement.”
And will you say the same when you want the Church to meet YOUR needs? We’re all in this together, like it or lump it.
It has been many many years since I held out any hope that the Church will meet my needs. My continued attendance at Mass is a sacrificial offering to the Christ I believe in. I no longer trust that even the sacraments are guaranteed. No one in this Church cares a farthing for my needs.