BishopAccountability.org
	The Possibility of Generosity By Patrick McIlheran Milwaukee Journal Sentinel January 12, 2011 http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/113332214.html Filing for bankruptcy protection, says Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki, protects any victims of clergy sex abuse who haven’t yet filed suit: If current lawsuits eat up the archdiocese’s resources, later claimants are out of luck, he says. There’s reason to believe him: The church already has sold off real estate it owned for future parishes, and it’s been trying to sell its headquarters. It laid off about 40% of its staff. These things suggest an organization out of money; we’ll find out once the bankruptcy court sees the books. By contrast, lawyers suing the archdiocese on behalf of the church simply make claims that its pot of money is “vast and unknown,” as one, Jeffrey Anderson, put it. Perhaps he’s imagining some priceless art off in the Vatican might be auctioned – though the Vatican, separate from its dioceses, is perpetually penniless as well, since it’s in the same fix as the Milwaukee Public Museum was a few years back, in possession of museum-quality treasures but unable to sell them to raise money because of museum-world ethical taboos. Or perhaps Anderson’s thinking of selling off parishes’ real estate, though as Listecki correctly pointed out, parishes are separately incorporated in Wisconsin. Besides, it kind of changes the moral dynamics of the lawyers’ story when by their demands we’ll see 1,400 city kids chucked out of, say, St. Anthony’s before a sheriff’s auction. No, I don’t think the cathedral’s going to be sold off for a nightclub any time soon. But where, then, one might ask, would the archdiocese get money to pay new victims who respond to this “final call” for claims? Charles Zech, an economist at Villanova University, suggests one possibility. Zech, an authority of church financial management, has been surveying Catholics’ attitudes on money amid the scandal for years now – and he finds surprising support for some kind of special collection to compensate victims. He mentioned survey results when I talked to him a few years ago, and he says things haven’t changed much: Some Catholics will respond if asked to chip in for victims of abuse, “if it’s presented right.” Certainly not a majority, he says, “but it’s a significant minority.”
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