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	Diocese Honest Enough to Admit It's about the Money By Jim Trageser North County Times [California] March 3, 2007 http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/03/04/opinion/trageser/18_04_193_3_07.txt When lawyers are pulling out all the stops to convince us it's not about the money, you know what? It's about the money. And so the high and mighty moralizing from plaintiffs' attorneys last week as the Diocese of San Diego filed for bankruptcy protection in the wake of the sex abuse lawsuits ought to be viewed with at least as much suspicion as the church's statements of regret have received. It is absolutely about the money, and Bishop Robert Brom has acknowledged as much. Now if we could just get the attorneys on the other side to also admit that it is indeed about the money, we could have a reasonable, realistic discussion about how best to confront the devastating effects the sexual abuse of children by priests have had on those who were abused. Clearly, it's going to involve a massive transfer of money from the diocese ---- well, from tithing Catholics such as myself ---- to those who were so terribly wronged. With a 15 percent, 20 percent, 30 percent cut or more to their attorneys, of course. The only question is how much. And whether the local diocese can survive what a court may order paid. The point that the plaintiffs' lawyers are missing is that the Catholic Church is more than pedophile priests. And the idea that taking money from church coffers will somehow punish or hurt those who abused the children is simply wrongheaded. The church isn't the priests, nor even the bishop. It's the people ---- those in the pews each Sunday, those working at the many charitable efforts the church runs to help the less-fortunate in the community, those who will actually fork over the millions of dollars eventually awarded ---- money that will make these attorneys very, very wealthy. In no way am I defending the priests who abused children. Within the Catholic faith community, an ordained priest holds a position of trust that only a Catholic, Eastern Orthodox Christian or Anglican can really understand. And when someone in such a position violates that trust in as egregious a manner as child molestation, I can't even imagine the damage that is done. Those priests who committed these hideous acts deserve every punishment the courts mete out to them, and more. And those bishops and other church officials who not only knew of this behavior but covered it up and, worse, transferred these abusers to different parishes rather than defrocking them and turning them over to civil authorities for trial likewise should be held criminally liable. But will crippling the diocese with massive, multimillion-dollar awards do anything to help those who were so very, very wronged? Will shutting down Catholic Social Services so that the poor have one less resource to rely on bring any relief at all to the sex abuse victims? What about Father Joe's Village? Mercy Hospital? St. Vincent de Paul? The University of San Diego, Cathedral High or the many Catholic elementary schools? The soup kitchens and homeless shelters? Programs to help recently released prisoners re-adapt to life in the community? These are all part and parcel of Catholic life in the U.S., and always have been. Service to the poor and less fortunate, including such socially unpopular groups as illegal immigrants and death row inmates, is as inseparable from what the Catholic Church is as is holding daily Mass. And the current bishop has an absolute responsibility to see that those services and functions are not threatened by the settlement of the sex abuse claims against the diocese. So the bishop was right in filing for bankruptcy. Too many people in our community rely on services provided by Catholic agencies to allow the financial future of the diocese to be threatened by awards that will do nothing to punish those who actually caused harm. Jim Trageser is a staff writer for Preview, the North County Times' weekly entertainment guide, and a parishioner at St. Mary's Church in Escondido. Contact him at (760) 631-6628 or jtrageser@nctimes.com.
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