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	It's Hard All around Cardinal Mahony to Sell Sisters of Bethany Convent in Santa Barbara to Help Cover What He Owes in the Clergy Sex-Abuse Settlement California Catholic Daily September 9, 2007 http://calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=8391e279-8f89-4667-88db-05b9dcc52527 "The pain is being spread around," said Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the Los Angeles archdiocese. He referred, in an interview with the Sept. 7 Los Angeles Times, to the sale of a convent in Santa Barbara as part of the archdiocese's effort to pay its share of the $660-million settlement it reached with victims of clergy molestation. The convent has been the home of the Sisters of Bethany and was built for the congregation in 1952. Unlike most houses belonging to religious congregations, the convent is owned by the archdiocese, which it has been renting out to the sisters for free. The sisters themselves pay for the utilities and the upkeep. Three sisters live at the convent, a stucco building that includes a "warren" of rooms, said the Times, and a chapel and sits adjacent to Our Lady of Guadalupe church. In their full, blue habits and white veils and wimples, the three sisters who live at the house – Sisters Angela Escalera, 69, Consuelo Cardenas, 55, and Margarita Antonia Gonzalez, 49 – have worked with the poor and undocumented immigrants on Santa Barbara's east side with their various needs, including counseling and translation. At the end of August, the sisters received a letter (dated June 28) from the archdiocese's vicar general, Msgr. Royale Vadakin, saying they had to leave the property by Dec. 31. Sister Angela said she feels at times anger, pain, and resignation when she thinks about the letter. "We're not even worth a phone call," she told the Times. "That's one of things that hurts so much." Another thing that "hurts," she said, is that the money from the sale of the house "will be used for, to help pay for the pedophile priests. We have to sacrifice our home for that?" Tamberg said the sale of the house, though hard, was necessary. And others in the archdiocese are suffering. "We're losing our [the archdiocese's Wilshire Ave.] headquarters here, and none of the employees got a pay raise this year. This is just part of making it right with the victims, and we all have to share in the process even though none of us -- the nuns, myself -- harmed anybody. All of us as a church have to pay for the sins of a few people." Being unable to afford a rental in Santa Barbara on their own, Sister Angela said she and her two sisters would have to go to their congregation's house in Los Angeles. One woman said she would help the sisters by the proceeds from the rental of a house she owns in Santa Barbara. The convent, assessed at $97,746, could sell for far more. Other houses in the neighborhood start at $700,000. Besides the archdiocese's headquarters, the convent is the first property identified for liquidation in the sex abuse settlement pay out. Cardinal Roger Mahony has said he will not sell any parish properties for this purpose.
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