Churchgoers' Help Sought in Abuse Payouts The San Diego Diocese's Request for Donations to Defray Settlement Costs Divides Parishioners. Priests Are Also Asked to Give and Say They Will, by Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times, October 8, 2007

Churchgoers Help Sought in Abuse Payouts
The San Diego Diocese's Request for Donations to Defray Settlement Costs Divides Parishioners. Priests Are Also Asked to Give and Say They Will

By Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times
October 8, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-church8oct08,0,4945489.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california

OCEANSIDE — Bishop Robert Brom of the San Diego Diocese is asking priests and parishioners to dig into their pocketbooks to help pay a $198-million settlement for the victims of clergy abuse — a request that has drawn a pledge of solidarity from many priests but a negative response from some congregants.

He made his unusual request last week to the several hundred priests in the Roman Catholic diocese, which includes San Diego and Imperial counties, that he heads.

“Sometimes you have to pay for problems you didn’t cause — that’s life. Let’s pay and move on,” said Marie English
Photo by Karen Tapia-Andersen

"We're in solidarity," the Rev. Ray Elam, associate pastor at St. Mary Star of the Sea in Oceanside, said Sunday at one of the largest and most prominent churches in the diocese.

But there was no solidarity Sunday at St. Mary about Brom's other request: that churchgoers give "generously" to help pay for the sins of predatory priests.

"Honestly, I don't think people should have to pay," said Joe Anthony, 46, a carpenter and St. Mary regular. "They should go to Rome; that's where the money is."

Michael Cafarchia, 75, a retired executive, agreed.

"It's not right to ask the parishioners to pay, not after the way the hierarchy covered up these crimes for years," he said. "The church has plenty of property to sell."

“You want to help, but you also feel that people who turned a blind eye to this for so long should be held accountable,” said Jose Jara.
Photo by Karen Tapia-Andersen

Nile Holmes, 76, a truck driver, said the answer to the sexual abuse scandal lies in jail sentences, not a monetary settlement. "Why aren't they putting some people in jail over this?" he asked as he approached the church steps.

The discontent among parishioners isn't confined to just one church.

Vicki Sheridan, who helps run the Bible study group at Sacred Heart Church in Coronado, said she was impressed that priests were willing to contribute a month's salary. Though she thought the request from the diocese was reasonable, she said she wasn't inclined to donate.

"The people who are actually culpable, a lot of them are dead, and among the rest of us, nobody has any more culpability than anyone else," said Sheridan, a homemaker. "But I do think the Vatican can sell a painting or two. That would pay for it."

Still, some said they would gladly support Brom.

"This is our church and we love it," said Marie English, 76, a member at St. Mary. "If the church needs help, how can we deny it? Sometimes you have to pay for problems you didn't cause — that's life. Let's pay and move on."

Brom has asked parish priests in the diocese's 99 churches to take his request to their congregants. Fundraising letters in English, Spanish and Vietnamese are to be sent out later this month.

The priests seem in lockstep with their bishop. Indeed, the idea of forgoing a month's salary was made by an advisory committee to the bishop.

Elam said he and other priests agreed with the Rev. Ned Brockhaus, pastor of St. John of the Cross in Lemon Grove, who said recently that "It's a way of kind of righting some of the injustices done . . . and also starting the healing process."

Charles Zech, director of the Center for the Study of Church Management and an economist at Villanova University in Philadelphia, said he believed this was the first time a diocese had asked priests and parishioners directly to contribute to the cost of a clergy abuse legal settlement. He said the closest equivalent action would be requests by dioceses in the Spokane, Wash., and Tucson areas for their parishes to contribute to settlement costs.

Zech said he considered it fair to ask priests and parishioners to contribute to the settlement, but only if any contributions were truly voluntary.

He added that contributions by priests would add "credibility" to the fundraising effort. Zech said it would be "a wonderful example" for parishioners "if a pastor would stand before his congregation on Sunday and say, 'We've got this appeal, and I'm contributing, and I urge you to.' "

What's more, Zech said, "It would be hard for a priest to ask his parishioners to contribute if he himself is not contributing."