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Times Reporting on LA Archdiocese's Sex Scandal Settlement
ProfessorBainbridge.com
July 16, 2007
http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2007/07/la-times-report.html
(Los Angeles CA) — A plague on both their houses. I have no great love for LA Archbishop Roger Cardinal Mahoney (see, e.g., Mahony Must Go). His mishandling of sex abuse by priests is a true scandal.
At the same time, I have no great love for the LA Times. The Times' reporting on the recent $660 million settlement between the Archdiocese and 508 alleged victims is a classic example of the shoddy way the Times has covered this whole tragedy. For example, the Times claims each victim will receive an average of $1.3 million, which is what you get if you divide $660 million by 508. But what about attorney's fees? Plaintiffs lawyers typically walk away with 40% of a settlement as their contingent fee, plus they get reimbursed for all of their expenses out of the settlement. It'd be very surprising if the victims saw 50% of the settlement.
Second, the Times quotes an Archdiocese spokesman as saying that ""Parish assets will not be touched, and the mission of the church will be impacted but not crippled." Yet, the Times story makes no effort - zero, nada, zilch - to determine the ways in which the church's mission will be impacted. As I explained in From Priest Abuse to Legal Abuse:
In a diocese such as San Diego, there are hundreds of parishes, schools, orphanages, homeless shelters, hospitals, nursing homes, and so on, each ministering to numerous worshippers and even non-Church members. When the diocese faces mass tort liability, the assets and property of many parishes and other ministries that had no connection with any incident priest sex abuse are thus made available to satisfy the claims of sex abuse plaintiffs. Inevitably, execution of a judgment against such assets would impede, if not destroy, the ability of these ministries to serve the needs of their congregants. Indeed, the mere threat of liability might do so. As Edward Gaffney and Philip Sorensen have observed, "Both church and society will suffer if the continuation of ministries prompted by compassion—ministries often involving risks—is stopped short by the nervous calculation of legal liabilities."
In turn, the impact of such liability—or even the risk of such liability—on parishioners inevitably redounds against the Church. If parishioners come to believe that donations to their local parish, which they expect to be used in the main for the benefit of the local church and its ministries, are being siphoned off to pay diocesan claims and legal bills, their attitude towards giving to the support of the parish will inevitably sour. In turn, this is likely to impact the morale and effectiveness of the parish priest and other local church workers, whose morale may already be in doubt due to the threat to their retirement and health benefits. As Mark Chopko explains, "Religious entities, to a greater extent than their secular entities, rely on the unbridled goodwill of volunteers to make their operations run."
The victims deserve compensation, but there are other stakeholders who deserved to have their story told too.
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