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	Archdiocese Prepares for Return to Court Catholic Herald October 28, 2008 http://www.archmil.org/news/ShowNews.asp?ID=3149 Fraud alleged by abuse victims in seven cases ARCHDIOCESE OF MILWAUKEE – The Archdiocese of Milwaukee will find itself in court again next spring or summer to defend itself against claims of fraud in seven lawsuits. The lawsuits, made by nine claimants, allege sexual abuse by four priests, decades ago, during the 1960s and 1970s. The filing of these suits stems from a July 11, 2007 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that the archdiocese could be sued for fraud for placing priests in ministry when the archdiocese was aware of their history of abuse. Three of the four priests in these cases were priests of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Sigfried Widera and Lawrence Murphy are deceased; Franklyn Becker has been laicized. Bruce MacArthur, a priest of the Diocese of Sioux Falls, S.D., served for a short time in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The first trial, according to John Rothstein, an attorney with Quarles & Brady, the law firm representing the archdiocese, will probably occur in June or July, 2009, with subsequent trials beginning some time between September and October, 2009. Claims of Fraud According to Rothstein, the claimants' allegation of fraud is the only one allowed since the statute of limitations has expired on the claims of the abuse itself. Fraud, Rothstein explained, requires an element of deliberately saying something you know is wrong. It's intentional, and, the people who are suing have to have relied upon that information to their detriment. 'Key people' no longer alive Rothstein said that a significant factor in these cases is that "key people," e.g., Archbishop William E. Cousins, his priest advisors and the medical and mental health professionals, who advised him, are deceased. He provided an example. "When a judge hears a trial, a judge hears all the facts. Let's assume the claim is true; it happened. You hear all the facts, but the event occurred 40 years ago. Now the judge has to deal with the fact that the bishop is gone; the medical provider who provided advice is gone; the medical institution at which the medical provider worked and its records are gone," he said. "We can't call the bishop and find out what he was told." Rothstein said that given the amount of time that has lapsed and given that people significant to the cases are deceased, the court will have one question to answer: "Is this a fair process?" Barbara Anne Cusack, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, said that the archdiocese is not defending abusers or the activity of abusers, but is concerned about the amount of time that has passed, since it could hinder the court's ability to hear all the facts of the cases and to understand why decisions were made. "How can we know the intentions and the mind of a bishop when he and everyone who worked with him is dead?" she said. "To perpetrate a fraud is a deliberate act. The individual is not here to share what he thought he was doing when he did it. To look only at the action and not the intention – that is going to be very difficult to know what he was intending." Cusack also said that there are implications about how abuse is viewed by church leaders and mental health professionals today versus when the abuse occurred years ago. "It's very easy to take today's understanding of child abuse and to superimpose it on mentalities of 40 years ago," she said. "I don't think anyone 40 years ago thought it was okay, but they did not understand the impact, did not understand the psychology; it was considered a moral failing." Parishes' assets protected by state law Earlier this year, in the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, four parishes where abuse had taken place contributed $2.9 million to a $37 million settlement among creditors listed in the diocese's reorganization plan that resulted from its filing for bankruptcy. According to Cusack, individual parishes in Wisconsin have protection that parishes in Iowa did not. "The canonical and civil structures parallel one another so that in civil law every parish is a separate civil corporation; this is under statutory rule of the state of Wisconsin. They are not new; we did not invent them in order to protect the parishes. They've been in place since the 1890s," she said, noting that the law "doesn't just define parish, but defines the Catholic parish in its civil state." Cusack said that in canon law (church law) and civil law, property is titled to every parish, and that each of those entities – "juridic person" in canon law -- has its own employer ID number and its own bank accounts. "In canon law, each juridic person owns its own property," she said. "One juridic person cannot seize the property of another juridic person." Few resources to pay settlements According to John Marek, chief financial officer of the archdiocese, in theory, if the court rules against the archdiocese, it could push the archdiocese toward bankruptcy. Marek noted that the archdiocese didn't have any savings and had few properties, including the Cousins Center. "That is what would be available to fund a settlement or resolution from a financial standpoint," he said. Cardinal Stritch University has agreed to purchase the Cousins Center property, but a contingency of that sale is rezoning of the property for educational use by the City of St. Francis. Money from the sale of the building and 44 acres will be used to repay the loan that was needed to pay a 2006 settlement in California. That settlement was for approximately $16 million, of which the Archdiocese of Milwaukee paid approximately $8 million, with the remainder of the amount covered by insurance. There would be no insurance coverage in a case alleging fraud. No CSA money for settlements One of the concerns that Marek hears from people in parishes is that the money they contribute to the annual Catholic Stewardship Appeal will be used to pay abuse settlements. He reiterated that since CSA donations are given for specific purposes, the law recognizes the donor's intent for those funds. "We have not used CSA money for settlements and we believe that the legal view would be that they are not available for settlements," Marek said. "They were specifically given for specific ministries and support of certain services." Settlements the archdiocese has reached in other cases have had a negative impact upon programs and services provided by the archdiocese to parishes and schools. There have been cutbacks in both staffing and services in each of the past six years, Marek said. "Still, the central offices of the archdiocese continue to operate the best we can with the resources we have," said Jerry Topczewski, Archbishop Dolan's chief of staff. "We can not operate thinking we're going to be in bankruptcy court in six months. We couldn't live that way. We know that is a last resort and our hope is to find another way to resolve these cases." In addition, The Faith In Our Future Trust was established in 2007 to collect and distribute the contributions given for Catholic education and faith formation initiatives during the Faith In Our Future Capital Campaign. Under the terms of the Trust Agreement that established the Trust, the funds donated to the Faith In Our Future capital campaign can be used solely for the purposes outlined in the campaign case statement and in the respective parish case statements, and for administration of the Trust. The terms of the Trust prohibit the use of the Trust assets for purposes not authorized in the Trust Agreement and the Trustees are not permitted to use the donations to pay for any general obligations or claims against the archdiocese or any parish. 'Gloriousness in woundedness' While the resolution of the cases is clouded by uncertainty, Cusack noted that the risen body of Christ and the church as the Body of Christ provide images that might help Catholics understand what the church in southeastern Wisconsin is experiencing. "The body of Christ, even in its resurrected form, has wounds. When Christ came to the upper room after his resurrection, he had his wounds," she said. "The fact that we are a wounded church means that we must stay closer to Christ, and we need to know the wounds are real, and must have the courage to touch them, that is, reach out to those who remind us of the wounds." She added that Catholics, as the Body of Christ, must realize they will always be wounded. "And the resurrected body of Christ was glorious even in its woundedness," Cusack said. "That's what the church is."
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