WASHINGTON (DC)
Reuters
By Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - First came the sex scandal. Then there were lawsuits. Now there are bankruptcies.
And some economic analysts believe this could be just the beginning of the financial fallout from widespread charges of clerical sexual abuse within the U.S. Catholic Church.
Nearly 11,000 people have accused priests of child sexual abuse from 1950 through 2002, according to a church-commissioned study released this year. There could be thousands more who have not yet come forward.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has acknowledged this as its worst scandal and vowed to "heal the hurt that has happened," in the words of departing conference president Bishop Wilton Gregory.
The question is how to pay for it.
"Even without the sex abuse scandal, the Catholic Church was in deep financial difficulty," said Charles Zech, an economics professor at Villanova University who monitors church finances.
Posted by kshaw at December 28, 2004 08:43 AM