Jesuits: Seattle U’s Money Won’t Be Used to Pay Victims of Sexual Abuse

By Marc Stiles
Puget Sound Business Journal
January 23, 2014

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2014/01/23/jesuits-seattle-us-money-wont-be.html

A $2.2 million building sale in Seattle last week had people wondering if the buyer, Seattle University, was helping the seller, a group of priests, pay damages to hundreds of sexual-abuse victims.

The answer is no, a spokesman for the Oregon province of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits as they are more commonly known, said Tuesday.

The province declared bankruptcy nearly three years ago, around the time that the group agreed to pay $166.1 million to about 500 people abused by Jesuit priests at schools in the Pacific Northwest. It was one of the Catholic Church’s biggest sex-abuse settlements.

At the time, the National Catholic Reporter reported that the province would pay $48.1 million and that the order’s insurer would pay the rest.

On Jan. 16, Seattle University paid the Jesuits $2.2 million for the Arrupe Jesuit Community Building, which is on campus at 924 E. Cherry St. SU had previously owned the land but not the building, which serves as a home to Jesuits.

The purchase will help Seattle University, a Jesuit-run institution, ensure the continued presence of “a vibrant Jesuit community on our campus and is consistent with the relationship between other Jesuit universities and their Jesuits,” SU spokeswoman Stacy Howard said in a statement.

Pat Walsh, the spokesman for the Oregon province of the Society of Jesus, said the sale is unrelated to the sexual-abuse settlement. The bankruptcy was over with several years ago, and the people who had claims against the province have been paid, he said.

Money from the sale of the building will go into the province’s budget and could be used to fund the care of elderly priests, Walsh said, adding that Jesuits have been selling residence halls to Jesuit educational institutions.

The sale to SU “is a normalization of the housing arrangements at universities,” Walsh said.

During bankruptcy proceedings, Seattle University officials said the college was completely separate from the Oregon province, even though the province’s website lists SU as one of its partners.

But, Walsh said, the province and the university “are separate business entities. They have been for decades.”