About $67 Per Catholic, More Than $1 Million Per Parish Cost of Los Angeles Archdiocese's Settlement of Sexual Abuse Lawsuits in Perspective, California Catholic Daily, July 17, 2007

About $67 Per Catholic, More Than $1 Million Per Parish
Cost of Los Angeles Archdiocese's Settlement of Sexual Abuse Lawsuits in Perspective

California Catholic Daily
July 17, 2007

http://calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=b4a25f68-3a66-4c19-8b72-cb30726e40eb

On Monday morning, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Haley Fromholz approved a $660 million settlement reached over the weekend between the Los Angeles archdiocese and more than 500 alleged victims of clergy sex abuse. According to the settlement, the archdiocese will pay $250 million, its insurers, $227 million, and religious orders, $60 million. The remaining $123 million is up for negotiation between plaintiffs and religious orders.

Last December, the archdiocese settled 46 clergy abuse cases for $60 million, of which the archdiocese would pay $40 million, and insurers the remainder.

In a statement released on Sunday, Cardinal Roger Mahony acknowledged that "these settlements will have very serious and painful consequences for the Archdiocese," which will require the archdiocese "to reevaluate all of our ministries and services since we will not be able to offer them at the same levels as in the past."

The archdiocese will "also be required to sell non-essential properties in order to fund our portion of the settlements." However, the cardinal said, "no parish properties or parish schools will be affected as a result of these settlements."

According to a statistical review of the archdiocese, found on its web site, the archdiocese's "Total Roman Catholic Population" is 4,349,267, about 38% of the total regional population of 11,258,600. The archdiocese's payout of $250 million would cost each Catholic about $57. Adding the payout for December's $40 million settlement, the cost rises to about $67 per Catholic. Since a good percentage of the Catholic population are children, the combined settlements would cost a family of three $201; a family of five, $335; and a family of seven, $469.

This month's settlement, divided by the number of parishes (288) would come to $868,055 per parish. Adding the December settlement, the cost to each parish would be $1,006,944.

These figures do not include settlements the archdiocese reached with alleged victims from 2002 to December 2006. According to the July 16 Los Angeles Times, the archdiocese, its insurers, and religious congregations paid out about $54 million to claimants during that period. The figures also do not reflect what additional money the archdiocese must pay out in the current settlement if religious congregations are unable to pay the whole of the $123 million still up for negotiation between plaintiffs and religious congregations. The archdiocese has said it will cover what the religious orders cannot pay.