By G. Jeffrey MacDonald
USA Today
December 5, 2007
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-12-04-boston-college_N.htm
For nearly six years, Boston-area Catholics have asked what good, if any, could come of the devastating clergy sexual abuse crisis that began there. Today, Boston College announced its $400 million answer.
That's how much the school intends to spend to develop 65 acres and 14 buildings acquired in deals with a cash-strapped and scandal-weary Archdiocese of Boston. The archdiocese got $172 million from the sale, more than enough cash to finance its $84 million settlement with abuse victims; the college got a key parcel for advancing a $1.6 billion, 10-year strategic plan to be announced Wednesday.
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| Boston College purchased the Cardinal's Residence, last occupied by Bernard Law, from the cash-strapped Archdiocese of Boston. |
As dioceses around the country weigh how to pay settlement debts in the tens and hundreds of millions, some observers are pointing to what's playing out in Boston as a model worth emulating: The new owner of the archdiocese's former headquarters and adjacent grounds is a Catholic institution (a Jesuit university) with ambitious plans. An ornate mansion, which became a symbol of clerical aloofness when Cardinal Bernard Law lived there, will find rebirth as a conference center; there will be new playing fields, an athletic complex, dormitories and offices.
"We're learning a lot from Boston," says Chuck Zech of Villanova University, an expert on Catholic Church finances. "In the long run, the Catholic Church is best served by keeping these properties in the family."
Not everyone sees Boston College's grand plans as a silver lining to a dark episode.
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"That property was the seat of so many decisions where priests were protected and children were put at risk. It would have felt like better justice to me if they had to sell it to Boston University or another non-Catholic college," says Ann Hagan Webb, New England coordinator for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, an advocacy and support group.
Around the country, dioceses are facing the unwelcome prospect of selling real estate to cover debts stemming from clergy sexual abuse. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is selling a Santa Barbara convent and its high-rise office space, among other properties, to finance a $660 million settlement with victims. Dioceses in Davenport, Iowa; Spokane, Wash.; and Providence have all either sold properties or announced intentions to sell. Last month, a judge declined to give bankruptcy protection to the Diocese of San Diego on the grounds that the church could cover its settlement debts by selling real estate.
But selling real estate can be risky for dioceses. Just 38% of 787 regular Mass-attending Catholics in a 2005 Zogby International poll said they support selling assets to pay settlements, Zech says. What's more, dioceses depend on real estate investments to provide revenue for pensions, ministries and overhead.
"People are living longer, and that includes priests and nuns," says Timothy Liam Epstein, a Catholic Chicago lawyer who has written on the issue of financing religious retirements. "There certainly is the danger of the church mortgaging away its future."
Perhaps other dioceses will now see the wisdom in rethinking what they need and getting more value from underused real estate, says Boston College president William Leahy, a Jesuit priest.
"The Catholic community will never forget the past involving sexual abuse," he says, "but it can't live there, either. It has to move forward."
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