Milwaukee Archdiocese: The Price of Abuse

Hindsight is 20/20.

I'm sure Church leaders are regretting the way they chose to handle priests and nuns accused of abusing children.

But, really, how difficult was it to see that protecting the predators was wrong?

How could they not understand that it was wrong to cover up crimes?

How could they not know that they were risking lawsuits down the road?

How could they not know in their hearts that failing to deal with the victims in a responsible and compassionate manner was wrong?

Was that a Christ-like approach to take?

As sexually abusive priests were being moved from parish to parish, and children were continuing to be put at risk, how could they possibly think that was the right thing to do?

Church facing wave of trouble

With Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan at the helm, the Catholic Church here is navigating turbulent times with a growing storm of financial pressures, embarrassing documentation of old sexual-abuse coverups, and the opening of long-closed routes for childhood victims of clergy molestation to file lawsuits in Wisconsin.

Dolan cautioned parish leaders last week to prepare to be rocked by the release of Milwaukee church documents from a California lawsuit that show how an abusive priest with multiple accusations was quietly moved from parish to parish years ago.

The larger question is whether the archdiocese or any individual parishes could be capsized by a wave of red ink from new lawsuits.

Faced with pending trials and mounting claims by victims of priest abuse, five dioceses in the United States filed for bankruptcy in the past 3 1/2 years - an option cited by Dolan as a possibility here. The Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., was the first to seek Chapter 11 protection, followed by the dioceses of Tucson, Ariz., Spokane, Wash., Davenport, Iowa, and San Diego.

They haven't closed or sold parishes or schools, but their cases offer other lessons on what the future could hold for the church in southeastern Wisconsin.

...[Fred Naffziger, a corporate attorney and professor of business law at Indiana University South Bend who has followed the diocesan bankruptcies,] sees bankruptcy as having mixed results for dioceses. It's intrusive, forcing dioceses to open up their financial and business activities. And attorneys' fees and other costs can easily exceed $1 million in just a year in a contentious bankruptcy.

On the other hand, it "brings order out of chaos" by moving all civil suits and other legal actions into one court, he said. It provides a balanced distribution of the assets, and it lets dioceses avoid punitive damages for gross negligence when cases go to trial.

"Dozens of dioceses have threatened bankruptcy," said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "It's an extraordinarily powerful negotiating ploy and threat. The five dioceses that have chosen bankruptcy, we are absolutely convinced, have done so to protect secrets, not assets."

The church hierarchy does not want to have to get on the witness stand and testify, he said. They learned that when Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law had to give sworn depositions and then resigned amid the furor over his handling of sexual abuse, Clohessy added

Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul attorney who represents clergy-abuse victims, said, "In every instance, except in Tucson, (the bankruptcy filing) was on the 11th hour of the first trial that was going to fully expose the secrets that have been kept so long by that diocese."

...Whatever happens in the coming months, the archdiocese - which says it already is financially strapped - has millions of dollars of potential exposure in new sexual-abuse lawsuits.

So far, seven people have lawsuits pending against the archdiocese in Milwaukee County as a result of a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling last year that allows churches to be sued for fraud if they moved abusive clergy from parish to parish without warning parishioners.

And a bill pending in the state Legislature could allow many more lawsuits by giving childhood victims of sexual abuse a limited time to file lawsuits for negligence no matter how long ago the abuse occurred, and by eliminating time limits in future cases.

Victims have long said that limits should be changed in these older cases because they often have not realized the damage done to them - or been psychologically able to come forward - until decades later.

Opponents have cited the difficulty in mounting a defense decades later. Dolan has opposed the bill, telling a legislative committee last month that the archdiocese had made many changes to protect children, reached mediated settlements with nearly 170 victims, sold property, cut back programs and is "at the limit of our ability to pay massive tort settlements."

State Sens. Julie Lassa (D-Stevens Point) and Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) said they are hopeful that negotiations will let the Legislature pass the bill, but time may run out, since the Legislature is scheduled to adjourn in less than six weeks. Lassa and Taylor are among a group of co-sponsors.

I pray for the abuse victims, and hope the mediated settlements and any future lawsuits bring some healing to them.

This is so painful. It never should have become such an enormous mess.

The Church did not respond properly, and now we have to pay.

I trusted and now I feel betrayed.

I don't know what else to say.