CALIFORNIA
The Orange County Register
By CHRIS KNAP
The Orange County Register
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange liquidated investments totaling $35 million to retire most of the debt it incurred in settling with 90 victims of sexual abuse, the church said Monday.
After the $100 million total settlement was made public last December, Catholics fretted that the church would have to sell its treasured Marywood pastoral center. That has not proved necessary.
The initial payment to the victims was funded half by the diocese's insurance companies and half by a short-term loan from Bank of America.
On Aug. 15 the diocese paid back $35 million of that $50 million loan. Rob Fitzgerald, a lay adviser to the bishop's task force on debt reduction, said the diocese hopes to pay an additional $5 million to $10 million on the loan in February and to retire the balance by June 2006.