Diocese of San Diego settles a large pedophilia case:

SAN DIEGO -- After years of negotiations, the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego announced Friday a $198.1-million settlement with 144 sexual abuse victims -- an amount second only to the $764 million that the Los Angeles Archdiocese has paid out since the scandal gripped the church nationwide in 2002.

The settlement is more than twice what the San Diego diocese had offered before filing for bankruptcy protection in February and slightly tops the average of $1.3 million per victim in the Los Angeles case.

In announcing the Los Angeles settlement in July, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony said he had spoken with San Diego Bishop Robert Brom and told him that he hoped the San Diego case could be resolved by Labor Day.

San Diego diocese lawyers initially had insisted that, unlike Los Angeles, the diocese here did not have the insurance coverage or assets to make a larger settlement without crippling the church's spiritual and social service efforts.

But that position may have changed late last month when Bankruptcy Judge Louise De Carl Adler said the diocese offer of $95 million was "far below the historic statewide average" of payments made to victims of clergy abuse.

She also repeatedly criticized the diocese's financial record-keeping as byzantine.

From the bare bones of the story it appears as if the San Diego diocese tried to evade the settlement by filing for bankruptcy. I thought only corporations were allowed to do that.

The settlement calls for the diocese to pay $77,071,350 and its insurance carrier $75,650,000 to settle 111 cases. Religious orders will pay $30,269,098 for 22 cases. The Diocese of San Bernardino, with help from its insurance carrier, will pay $15,134,552 for 11 cases. The churches of the San Bernardino diocese were part of the San Diego diocese until 1978.

I have a lot of tolerance for the weaknesses of mankind, since I come from a long line of mankind, but I have no regard for people who betray a trust.

In San Bernardino, church officials predicted that the local payment would not require layoffs or cutbacks. Bishop Gerald Barnes, like Brom, offered an apology and said, "I pray that you will forgive the church its faults and continue to see the great good the church carries out."

I’m still waiting to see that “great good.” Maybe he means the forced birthing? I wonder whether Bishop Barnes has ever read Matthew 23:26?

Congratulations to Judge Adler for the best sarcasm line of the week in a news story by accusing a Roman church of having Byzantine finances.

On a related note:

Sister Angela Escalera…and the other two nuns at the Sisters of Bethany house recently received word that their convent, which is owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, will be sold to help pay the bill for the church's recent, multimillion-dollar priest sex abuse settlement.

The nuns have four months to move out, according to a letter from the archdiocese. The notice, which was dated June 28 but not received until the end of August, asked the women to vacate the property no later than Dec. 31 -- and noted that an earlier departure "would be acceptable as well." Signed by Msgr. Royale M. Vadakin, the archdiocese's vicar general, the letter offers the nuns no recourse but thanks them for their understanding and cooperation during a difficult time.

"We're just so hurt by this," Escalera, the order's local superior, said this week. "And what hurts the most is what the money will be used for, to help pay for the pedophile priests. We have to sacrifice our home for that?"[emph added]

Yes, Sister. Yes, you do. We all must make sacrifices in difficult times. Did you expect Monsignor Vadakin to give up his residence?