BishopAccountability.org
	Reputation of Church Lost in Abuse Scandal By Jim Ketchum Port Huron Times-Herald July 21, 2007 http://www.thetimesherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070721/OPINION/707210314/1014 Los Angeles — So why didn't the Archdiocese of Los Angeles put a stop to clergy sex abuse long ago? I can think of 660 million reasons why the clerics should have. That's how many dollars it's going to cost to set things as right as they can get in a legal settlement of abuse claims, some of which are more than half a century old. The settlement, ratified Monday by a judge, involves more than 500 victims of abuse and is the largest payout since the church's dirty linen began being washed in public in 2002. That's when abuse charges emerged in a scandal in Boston. Since then, the church has agreed to shell out $157 million in Boston, $129 million in Portland, Ore., and $100 million in Orange County, Calif. Before the last dollar is paid in Los Angeles, the archdiocese will fork over $250 million from its own funds, its insurers will pay about $227 million and several religious orders will pay $60 million, according to The Associated Press. Some church buildings will be sold - no churches among them. The payout averages about $1.3 million per plaintiff, although individual payouts will vary depending on circumstances. The settlement becomes a vehicle to reduce human suffering to dollars and cents. It's a high price, but some victims wonder if the church leadership isn't getting off cheap. None of the higher-ups has been indicted for what is alleged to have gone on in the Los Angeles archdiocese. That could change once the dust has cleared after the settlement is complete. In some cases, the perpetrators - and their victims - are dead. Others are keeping as low a profile as they can. Cardinal Roger Mahoney, head of the archdiocese - the largest in the United States - apologized to the victims and their families. "There really is no way to go back and give them that innocence that was taken from them," he said. "The one thing I wish I could give the victims ... I cannot." Those words ring hollow for many of the victims and their families, whose lives never will be made whole no matter how much money or counseling they get and how many official apologies the leadership issues. Where do the victims go to get their innocence back? Where do they go to rebuild shattered lives? There's a larger question as well: Where does the church go to get its reputation back? Where does it go to buy back the sense of moral rectitude, uprightness and authority it loves to flaunt in the face of those who dare favor using condoms to fight the spread of AIDS or support a woman's right to choose? Where does the pope go to buy back the right to call the Roman Catholic Church the only "true" Christian church? We Christians are far from perfect. The Bible tells us we are supposed to forgive. Sometimes, though, it's almost too much to ask. Contact Jim Ketchum at aliceandjimk@juno.com.
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