BishopAccountability.org
	Parish's Bailout of Archdiocese Raises Questions, and Eyebrows LA Daily News May 4, 2008 http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_9154518 One can never say that the Catholic community lacks generosity. Whether it's Catholic Charities USA reaching out to those in need of all faiths or Catholic Relief Services providing food and clothing in the wake of disaster such as the 2004 Asian tsunami, Catholics have a rock-solid track record of giving. Like the parishioners at St. Bernadine of Siena in Woodland Hills, who backed their pastor, the Rev. Robert J. McNamara, in a plan to deplete nearly all of the church's savings _ $1.5 million _ to help the Archdiocese of Los Angeles pay the more than $720 million settlement owed to sex-abuse victims. The archdiocese had asked the 101 L.A. parishes with reserves in excess of $1 million to help pay the settlement balance not covered by loans, property sales, etc. But St. Bernardine's contribution went beyond that call, signaling both a sense of obligation to the archdiocese and a desire to soothe the wounds of those abused within the diocese over the years. The extreme generosity, however, doesn't sit right with all its parishioners, some of whom expressed in meetings with McNamara that they didn't want to give the archdiocese a dime to cover its sex-scandal tab. It's a reasonable position considering that Cardinal Roger Mahony and the diocesan administration were the targets of the lawsuit for shuttling offending clergy and not handling abuse allegations with a zero-tolerance policy. These parishioners had nothing to do with the mishandling of abuse cases that landed the archdiocese in hot water. The kindness of St. Bernardine's shows that charity is indeed love to parishioners who have raised thousands of dollars over the years to aid hurricane victims and the hungry in Africa. And they could do much more of that if Mahony could turn elsewhere for the means to bail the archdiocese out of this mess.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.