Voice from the Desert

L.A. Archdiocese to Pay $600M for Claims
July 14, 2007

From the MSNBC website, 7.14.2007.

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Archdiocese to pay $600M for claims

Settlement represents Church’s largest payout in sexual abuse scandal

BREAKING NEWS

The Associated Press

Updated: 12:36 p.m. MT July 14, 2007

LOS ANGELES - The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles will settle its clergy abuse cases for at least $600 million, by far the largest payout in the church’s sexual abuse scandal, The Associated Press learned Saturday.

Attorneys for the archdiocese and alleged victims are expected to announce the deal Monday, the day the first of more than 500 clergy abuse cases was scheduled for jury selection, according to two people with knowledge of the agreement. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the settlement had not been made public.

The archdiocese and its insurers will pay between $600 million and $650 million to about 500 plaintiffs—an average of $1.2 million to $1.3 million per person. The settlement also calls for the release of confidential priest personnel files after review by a judge assigned to oversee the litigation, the sources said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the payout would be split among the insurers, the archdiocese and several Roman Catholic religious orders. A judge must sign off on the agreement, and final details were being ironed out.

Lead plaintiff’s attorney Ray Boucher said negotiations would continue through the weekend and said there were still many unresolved aspects.

Tod Tamberg, an archdiocese spokesman, did not immediately return a call for comment.

A record settlement
The settlement would be the largest ever by a Roman Catholic archdiocese since the clergy sexual abuse scandal erupted in Boston in 2002.

Among the largest total payouts was $100 million in 2004 by the Diocese of Orange, Calif., to settle 90 claims. The Diocese of Boston agreed in 2003 to pay $84 million for 552 cases, the same figure the Diocese of Covington, Ky., agreed last year to pay to settle about 360 claims. Facing a flood of abuse claims, five dioceses—Tucson, Ariz.; Spokane, Wash.; Portland, Ore.; Davenport, Iowa, and San Diego—sought bankruptcy protection.

Last month, the Archdiocese of Portland agreed to pay about $52 million to 175 victims, while setting aside another $20 million for anyone who comes forward in the future.

The Diocese of Spokane, Wash., also recently emerged from bankruptcy protection after agreeing to pay $48 million to settle about 150 claims.

The Los Angeles archdiocese, its insurers and various Roman Catholic orders have paid more than $114 million to settle 86 claims so far.

The largest of those came in December, when the archdiocese reached a $60 million settlement with 45 people whose claims dated from before the mid-1950s and after 1987 — periods when it had little or no sexual abuse insurance. Several religious orders in California have also reached multimillion dollar settlements in recent months, including the Carmelites, the Franciscans and the Jesuits.

The resolution of more than 500 other lawsuits against the archdiocese, however, had remained elusive despite years of legal wrangling. Most of the outstanding lawsuits were generated by a 2002 state law that revoked for one year the statute of limitations for reporting sexual abuse.

Archdiocese to sell property
Cardinal Roger Mahony recently told parishioners in an open letter that the archdiocese was selling its high-rise administrative building and considering the sale of about 50 other nonessential church properties to raise funds for a settlement.

Still, church attorneys had been preparing for 15 trials involving 172 people, with jury selection in the first case to begin Monday.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge overseeing the cases recently ruled that Mahony could be called to testify in the second trial on schedule, and attorneys for plaintiffs wanted to call him in many more.

The same judge also cleared the way for four people to seek punitive damages from the archdiocese—something that could have opened the church to tens of millions of dollars in payouts if the ruling had been expanded to other cases.

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Here are some recent postings

* Voice of the Faithful Stops Claiming Doctrinal Fidelity
* NY Times: Pope Cites ‘Defects’ of Other Faiths
* Pope: Other Denominations Not True Churches
* Farewell to Vatican II
* Archdiocese Seeks a Settlement as 500 Sex Abuse Cases Head for Trial
* Mishandling of McCormack Case Shakes Faith

Voice of the Faithful Stops Claiming Doctrinal Fidelity
Wednesday, July 11, 2007

The following opinion piece is from the July 15-21 issue of the National Catholic Register (NOT the National Catholic Reporter).

Note that the Register is owned by the Legionaries of Christ. Capping a decade-long on-again, off-again investigation of accusations of sexual abuse, the Vatican has asked Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, to observe a series of restrictions on his ministry.

The Register is all wet. VOTF asked the Vatican for a review of celibacy as a requirement for priestly ministry in the Latin (Roman) rite. According to the Register and the Legionaries, asking for a review of a doctrine equates to doctrinal infidelity. What would they have said about those who asked for a review of slavery? What about usury? Would Jesus have been classified by these ninnies as a dissenter?

This elevation of “doctrine” to a status of worship is surely idolatry.

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‘Voice of the Faithful’ Stops Claiming Doctrinal Fidelity

BY TOM MCFEELY

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

July 15-21, 2007 Issue | Posted 7/10/07 at 3:54 PM

BOSTON — So much for Voice of the Faithful’s “neutrality.”

The Boston-based reform group, which formed in 2002 following revelations of clergy sexual misconduct in the Boston archdiocese, has been frequently accused of being a front group for Church dissenters.

And the organization — which by its own admission is currently facing both a “financial crisis” and a “crisis of leadership” — recently gave support to those accusations by breaking with its stated policy of “neutrality” between dissenting voices and the magisterium of the Catholic Church on issues like the ordination of married men.

On June 24, in an article titled “Catholic Lay Group Tests a Strategy Change,” The New York Times reported that Voice of the Faithful is lobbying for a Vatican “review” of the discipline of priestly celibacy.

“I take it to be a radical departure from what Voice of the Faithful has claimed was its policy and approach from the start,” Russell Shaw, a former spokesman for the U.S. bishops’ conference, said to the Register about the group’s decision to lobby about celibacy.

Since its inception, Voice of the Faithful has had a close association with prominent Church dissenters (see sidebar, page 12).

In response to criticism that it was using the abuse crisis as a pretext to push dissenting agendas, Voice of the Faithful formulated a “VOTF Policies and Positions” statement in 2002.

The document, which is posted on the VOTF website, states the group focuses on helping survivors of abuse — supporting faithful priests who uphold their vows, and seeking structural changes to prevent abuse — and that Voice of the Faithful takes no position “on the many other issues that divide Catholics.”

According to the document, “We do not advocate the end of priestly celibacy, the exclusion of homosexuals from the priesthood, the ordination of women, or any of the other remedies that have been proposed across the spectrum of Catholic thought.”

In an interview with the Register, Voice of the Faithful president Mary Pat Fox said her group does not believe celibacy directly causes abuse. She said the reason for calling for a Vatican review is because the celibate priesthood has been “one of the cornerstones of clericalism, which has created this culture of secrecy which is what really allowed the bishops to handle the sexual abuse crisis the way they did.”

Fox denied that asking for a review is a violation of Voice’s neutrality commitment.

“We’re not coming out with a statement that this is what we think the outcome of this review should be,” Fox said. “We’re saying that we don’t think the Vatican’s looked at it from this point of view before.”

Shaw accused Fox of “hairsplitting.” He said that although celibacy is a Church discipline, not a formal doctrine, and is therefore open to discussion among faithful Catholics, it’s improper to target the Vatican by asking it to review something that the Church has required for centuries and that was recently reaffirmed by Pope Benedict XVI.

Said Shaw, “If it isn’t dissent, it’s first cousin to dissent. I don’t see much difference.”

Regarding Fox’s assertion that celibacy contributed to clericalism, and indirectly to the cover-up of sexual abuse, Shaw said that he has extensively researched and written about the abuse of secrecy in the Church and will publish a book on the topic next year.

“But in all I’ve written about it and all I’ve read about it and all I’ve thought about it, I’ve never seen that point made,” Shaw said. “And I have no idea what the lady is talking about.”

Money ProblemsBecause of concerns that Voice of the Faithful promotes dissent and division, its activities have been banned or restricted in about 20 U.S. dioceses, Voice of the Faithful spokesman John Moynihan told the Register last year.

The decision to take a public stance on the priestly celibacy issue — and risk being banned by even more dioceses and alienating lay Catholics who believe the group’s claims of neutrality — may have been related to Voice of the Faithful’s financial problems.

The May 3 issue of the group’s newsletter, In the Vineyard, contains a report on an April 27-29 meeting in Boston of Voice of the Faithful’s national leaders.

At the meeting, Bill Casey, chairman of Voice of the Faithful’s Board of Trustees, and Mark Mullaney, its interim executive director, both warned that the group was facing a financial crisis.

“Although the number of individual contributors has increased, in the past year or so the number of major donors has declined,” said the newsletter article. “VOTF must reverse this trend to erase a projected $100,000 deficit in the next fiscal year.”

Fox attributed the financial problems to ineffective fundraising from major donors, and told the Register that the problem was being addressed by hiring a part-time development officer.

In the same issue of the newsletter, the organization acknowledged it faces other problems.

“In addition to the financial crisis facing VOTF, Bill Casey identified a crisis in leadership,” the newsletter said. “Evidence of this comes from the low response rates (a range of 1% to 5%) when members are asked for input on proposals.”

Former Voice of the Faithful President Jim Post acknowledged to The New York Times that there is an ongoing internal dispute about whether the group should openly push dissenting agendas like the ordination of women and married priests.

Said Post, “Even I, from time to time, wonder whether we shouldn’t just declare victory and say a lot’s been done in five years, the Church is doing better than it was, and then let the other organizations — Call to Action, Future Church and others that really want to deal with these issues — have the field.”

Asked about Post’s comments, current President Fox said that Post had told her that the Times quote wasn’t “totally complete.”

Said Fox, “I wouldn’t want you to think that we are leaving the centrist position.”

Voice of the Faithful’s actions have disappointed people who initially backed the group’s efforts to address the abuse problem.

One pastor in the Archdiocese of Boston originally supported Voice of the Faithful, as his heart went out to the numerous sexual abuse victims and their families. He allowed the group to meet on church property at first, but he became increasingly disillusioned as time went on.

“They switched hats,” said the priest, who did not want to be named. “Other groups with other agendas seemed to be involved.”

The Boston-area priest had encouraged people to work for reform within the Church structure, but he came to conclude that was not Voice’s goal.

The real eye-opener for this pastor came a few years ago when an auxiliary bishop came to visit his parish. He was greeted with hostility from Voice of the Faithful people outside the church on bullhorns, much to the pastor’s surprise.

“I went bonkers at that,” he said. “Their actions just didn’t seem fair.”

Since then, the group has no longer met at the church.

Russell Shaw is also dismayed by what has happened with Voice of the Faithful.

“All along, when they’ve spoken about the need for accountability, for openness, for the avoidance of excessive secrecy in the conduct of the Church’s affairs, my reaction has been they’re entirely right,” Shaw said. “But the problem all along has been this undercurrent of an excess of coziness with dissent.”

(Gail Besse contributed to this report.) Tom McFeely is based in Victoria, British Columbia.

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NY Times: Pope Cites ‘Defects’ of Other Faiths
Wednesday, July 11, 2007

This article from the 7.11.2007 edition of the New York Times demonstrates that Benedict XVI, a.k.a. Joseph Ratzinger, is a true medieval man, ignoring Martin Luther, Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin, and a host of other makers of the modern and/or post-modern world.

What a disaster this man is. And what a burden he is to many Catholics who believe in aggiornamento an Italian word meaning “updating,” of Vatican II.

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The New York Times

July 11, 2007

Pope, Restating 2000 Document, Cites ‘Defects’ of Other Faiths

By IAN FISHER

ROME, July 10 — Pope Benedict XVI restated Tuesday what he said were the “defects” of Christian faiths other than Roman Catholicism, prompting anger from Protestants who questioned the Vatican’s respect for other beliefs.

“It makes us question whether we are indeed praying together for Christian unity,” the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, which represents Protestants in more than 100 countries, said in a statement. The Vatican document repeated many of the contentious claims of a document issued in 2000 by the Vatican office on orthodoxy, which Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger headed for more than two decades before being elected pope in 2005.

The document released Tuesday focused largely on the Vatican definition of what constitutes a church, which it defined as being traceable through its bishops to Christ’s original apostles. Thus, it said, the world’s Orthodox Christians make up a church because of shared history, if “separated” from the “proper” Catholic tradition, while Protestants split from Catholicism during the Reformation are considered only “Christian communities.”

The document repeated church teaching that the Roman Catholic Church alone is the mediator of salvation, though other beliefs can be its “instrument.”

“These separated churches and communities, though we believe they suffer from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation,” the document read. “In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church.”

It was unclear why the Vatican issued the document now, especially since it largely restated earlier, if contentious, statements of church doctrine. The document from 2000, called “Dominus Iesus,” prompted angry reactions from other faiths, which accused the Vatican, and Cardinal Ratzinger specifically, of being unnecessarily divisive.

The stated purpose of the new document was as a “clarification” of doctrine amid disagreement among Catholics about the legacy of the Second Vatican Council, a three-year conference that ended in 1965 and changed church practice.

While liberals have seen the Second Vatican Council as a modernizing force, conservatives like Benedict argue — as did the document released Tuesday — that it represented not change but continuity.

Last week, Benedict made a similar argument in liberalizing the use of the old Latin Mass, largely set aside since the council endorsed holding Mass in the local languages of the world’s billion Catholics. Critics said the decision could further divide Catholics and raised questions about Benedict’s commitment to the changes made during the Second Vatican Council.

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Pope: Other Denominations Not True Churches
Tuesday, July 10, 2007

From the website of MSNBC, 7.10.2007.

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MSN Tracking Image
MSNBC.com

Pope: Jesus formed ‘only one church’

Benedict issues statement asserting that Jesus established ‘only one church’

MSNBC News Services

Updated: 6:52 a.m. MT July 10, 2007

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy - Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.

Benedict approved a document from his old offices at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that restates church teaching on relations with other Christians. It was the second time in a week the pope has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that modernized the church.

On Saturday, Benedict revisited another key aspect of Vatican II by reviving the old Latin Mass. Traditional Catholics cheered the move, but more liberal ones called it a step back from Vatican II.

Benedict, who attended Vatican II as a young theologian, has long complained about what he considers the erroneous interpretation of the council by liberals, saying it was not a break from the past but rather a renewal of church tradition.

In the latest document — formulated as five questions and answers — the Vatican seeks to set the record straight on Vatican II’s ecumenical intent, saying some contemporary theological interpretation had been “erroneous or ambiguous” and had prompted confusion and doubt.

It restates key sections of a 2000 document the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, “Dominus Iesus,” which set off a firestorm of criticism among Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the “means of salvation.”

In the new document and an accompanying commentary, which were released as the pope vacations here in Italy’s Dolomite mountains, the Vatican repeated that position.

“Christ ‘established here on earth’ only one church,” the document said. The other communities “cannot be called ‘churches’ in the proper sense” because they do not have apostolic succession — the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ’s original apostles.

‘Identity of the Catholic faith’
The Rev. Sara MacVane of the Anglican Centre in Rome, said there was nothing new in the document.

“I don’t know what motivated it at this time,” she said. “But it’s important always to point out that there’s the official position and there’s the huge amount of friendship and fellowship and worshipping together that goes on at all levels, certainly between Anglican and Catholics and all the other groups and Catholics.”

The document said Orthodox churches were indeed “churches” because they have apostolic succession and that they enjoyed “many elements of sanctification and of truth.” But it said they lack something because they do not recognize the primacy of the pope — a defect, or a “wound” that harmed them, it said.

“This is obviously not compatible with the doctrine of primacy which, according to the Catholic faith, is an ‘internal constitutive principle’ of the very existence of a particular church,” the commentary said.

Despite the harsh tone of the document, it stresses that Benedict remains committed to ecumenical dialogue.

“However, if such dialogue is to be truly constructive, it must involve not just the mutual openness of the participants but also fidelity to the identity of the Catholic faith,” the commentary said.

‘Not backtracking on ecumenical commitment’
The document, signed by the congregation prefect, U.S. Cardinal William Levada, was approved by Benedict on June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul — a major ecumenical feast day.

There was no indication about why the pope felt it necessary to release the document, particularly since his 2000 document summed up the same principles. Some analysts suggested it could be a question of internal church politics, or that it could simply be an indication of Benedict using his office as pope to again stress key doctrinal issues from his time at the congregation.

Father Augustine Di Noia, undersecretary for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the document did not alter the commitment for ecumenical dialogue, but aimed to assert Catholic identity in those talks.

“The Church is not backtracking on ecumenical commitment,” Di Noia told Vatican radio.

“But, as you know, it is fundamental to any kind of dialogue that the participants are clear about their own identity. That is, dialogue cannot be an occasion to accommodate or soften what you actually understand yourself to be.”

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Farewell to Vatican II
Tuesday, July 10, 2007

From the Boston Globe, 7.10.2007.

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By Frank K. Flinn | July 10, 2007

CATHOLICS AROUND the world should now have no illusions. Pope Benedict XVI’s recent decision to encourage wider use of the traditional Tridentine Mass in Latin is the latest move in his long campaign to undo liberal reforms in church practices popular with Catholics since the 1960s.

The move may well trigger liturgical schisms in dioceses throughout the world.

The form of the Mass was promulgated by Pope Paul V in the Roman Missal in 1570. In this rite the priest stands on an elevated altar, facing away from the people and mumbling the most sacred parts of the liturgy in Latin.

The Tridentine Mass lasted until the new form promulgated in 1969 by Pope Paul VI at Vatican Council II (1962-65). While drawing on some of the most ancient Christian forms of worship, the new Eucharist was translated into local languages. The priest now faced the congregation. Around the world liturgical music expanded to include gospel music, African chants and drumming, Mexican mariachi bands, folk music, and even pop rhythms. Immediately conservative Catholics attacked the new rite, but Paul VI warned that the gospel would be lost to the modern world if it were not addressed to people in their language and their customs.

Criticism continued unabated by a traditionalist minority. In 1988 former French Archbishop Marcel LeFebvre led a small minority of Catholics into schism over what he and his followers labeled the heretical “Mass of Paul VI.” The Lefebvrists not only rejected the new liturgy, they rejected key doctrines of Vatican II on ecumenism, religious liberty, and collegiality. Collegiality was the central ecclesiastical concept that shaped Vatican II. The depth of the traditionalists’ hatred of Vatican II teachings was and remains astounding.

On the other edge of the church, progressives wanted to advance the openings begun at Vatican II, not only in the liturgy but also in ecumenism, lay involvement, Christian social action (liberation theology, feminism, ecology), and ethical theory (priestly celibacy, birth control). Paul VI started to apply the brakes, but Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, his new prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , went in for a whole new brake job.

They set out to thwart the progressive side of the church. In the 1980s they silenced the liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, removed Swiss Hans Küng and American Charles Curran from their teaching posts, and unscrupulously oversaw the unlawful excommunication of the Indian Tissa Balasuriya. (That act was reversed.) Just this year the pope censured Salvadoran Jesuit liberation theologian Jon Sobrino by using the old Vatican tactic of stringing together quotations out of context.

In contrast, the papacy remained inexplicably lenient toward the schismatic Lefebvrists despite the scorn they continued to heap in the direction of the Vatican itself. Indeed, in the 1980s Cardinal Ratzinger gave them free ammunition. In the preface to a liturgical treatise he accused modern Masses of being faddish “showpieces” and “fabrications.” He went on to praise the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Eucharist as exemplars of an “eternal liturgy.” One can detect a Eurocentric prejudice in his remarks.

The pope has not been evenhanded in his dealings with the many branches of the Catholic church. He has simply capitulated to the Lefebvrists, who continue to look down contemptuously on average Catholic parishioners who like to worship in their own tongue and see their priest face-to-face. The appeal to an “eternal liturgy” is false. The liturgies of the earliest churches were both multiform and multilingual within the first generation going from Aramaic to Greek and Syriac in short order. The earliest known church, recently excavated at Megiddo in Israel, has the altar not elevated and apart but at the very center of the worshiping community. A true traditionalist would gladly embrace the many languages and cultures of the world as did the early church.

Why do I say farewell to Vatican II? One of the roots of that council was the liturgical movement that preceded it by half a century. The liturgical reformers were convinced that the liturgy was of, by, and for the whole people of God, clergy, and lay alike. The very word liturgia in Greek means “the work of the people.” This notion embodies at its fullest the principle of collegiality, the key theological idea that shaped Vatican II. The Tridentine Mass is the work of the priest. By turning back the liturgical clock not to the creative multiplicity of the early Christian communities but to the heyday of the Inquisition and papal monarchism at Trent, Pope Benedict XVI is abandoning the principle of collegiality that embraces all bishops, all priests, all deacons, and all lay people as the worshiping community of the beloved faithful. That says to Vatican II, “Farewell!”

Frank K. Flinn, adjunct professor of religious studies at Washington University in St. Louis, is author of “Encyclopedia of Catholicism.”

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Archdiocese Seeks a Settlement as 500 Sex Abuse Cases Head for Trial
Monday, July 9, 2007

From the Los Angeles Times, 7.9.2007.

* * *

History tells us to expect a settlement or a bankruptcy soon. That’s what bishops do when faced with the prospect of testifying in open court with all the world to see and hear.

* * *

Archdiocese seeks a settlement as 500 sex abuse cases head for trial

The payout could go as high as half a billion dollars, the largest in the country. ‘The day of reckoning is near,’ says a lawyer for plaintiffs.

By Joe Mozingo
Times Staff Writer

July 9, 2007

After more than four years of negotiation, pressure is mounting fast to settle some 500 claims that the Los Angeles Archdiocese failed to protect children from clergy abuse, before the first trial begins this month.

“We know it’s soon. We know it’s inevitable. The day of reckoning is drawing near,” said Jeffrey Anderson, a Minnesota lawyer who represents hundreds of alleged victims of clergy abuse in California and elsewhere.

The potential payout is staggering, at more than half a billon dollars by far the largest of any diocese in the country resulting from the Roman Catholic Church abuse scandal.

Already, the archdiocese, insurers and several Catholic orders have agreed to pay more than $114 million to settle 86 claims.

If the remaining cases go to trial, jury awards could be much larger, particularly when claimants seek punitive damages.

A jury in New York, for instance, ordered the Diocese of Rockville Centre in May to pay $5.9 million to one victim and $5.5 million to another. If an agreement can be reached before trial in Los Angeles, victims are expected to garner an average of slightly more than $1 million each, based on the cases that have been settled so far.

Going to trial would also force top officials, including Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, to testify publicly about what they knew about the abuse and what, if anything, they did to stop it.

Mahony is expected to be called to the stand in the first trial, involving two decades of alleged abuse by the late Father Clinton Hagenbach, who died in 1987, two years after Mahony became archbishop in Los Angeles. Thirteen more trials are scheduled to begin by January.

“It’s still my goal to reach an agreement before the first trials begin, but many, many pieces have to come together before that can happen,” said J. Michael Hennigan, who represents Mahony and the Los Angeles Archdiocese.

Hennigan declined to give details or comment further about the case because it “might have an impact on the ongoing discussions.”

Mahony has waged a protracted court battle to keep church personnel documents from victims, their lawyers, prosecutors and the public. But the courts ruled in a Los Angeles case that grand juries investigating crimes and civil lawyers preparing for trial were entitled to the information.

Attorneys for the accusers say any settlement agreement would include a stipulation that the church release the files publicly. However, individual clergy could contest the disclosures on privacy grounds.

Settlement negotiations have been complex, with more than 60 attorneys seeking differing sums for more than 570 claims of abuse occurring over 70 years by 221 accused perpetrators.

The church has blamed its insurers for failing to pay the major share of the settlements. The insurers, in turn, have questioned whether Mahony willfully withheld information about the abuse from them and say they don’t have to pay if the church officials’ actions were criminal.

“This could be a Katrina moment for the insurers,” said Pamela D. Hayes, an attorney who served on the National Lay Review Board, established by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to study the abuse scandal. “They’re fighting to the very end.”

In Orange County, insurers and the Diocese of Orange ended a similar standoff in 2005 when they agreed to split a $100-million settlement for 90 victims roughly 50-50.

But in San Diego earlier this year, Bishop Robert H. Brom announced that his diocese would file for bankruptcy rather than go to trial, putting the cases there on hold while a judge examines diocesan finances.

A Times analysis published in December 2006 showed that the Los Angeles Archdiocese has vast wealth, owning at least 1,600 properties with an estimated value of $4 billion.

Victims groups blame the Los Angeles church for continuing to stonewall.

“The fact that this trial [Hagenbach] would be the first ever priest-pedophile abuse trial in Los Angeles is very telling,” said Mary Grant, Western regional director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.

“I think if there is a way to delay this trial, we believe Cardinal Mahony will use whatever tactics he can to keep the crimes hidden to keep him from having to testify in open court about what he and church officials knew and what they failed to do to protect kids from predators,” Grant said.

Tod Tamberg, Mahony’s spokesman, said, “The vast majority of these cases predate Mahony, and many of them have nothing in their files.”

In the case of Hagenbach, he noted that Mahony moved from the Stockton Diocese to Los Angeles in 1985, less than two years before the priest died. “There were 2,000 priests back then,” Tamberg said. “He didn’t know any of these guys. And the first complaint about Hagenbach came in 2002.”

Tamberg said that the archdiocese has been working to settle the cases but that their sheer number and the complexity of the litigation in Los Angeles are far greater than in any other diocese in the nation.

He noted that it is not yet clear even what the exact number of claims against the church is.

“Complex negotiations do take time, yes, especially when you’re a Catholic church with limited resources,” he said.

Mahony wants to minimize any loss of services to parishioners, Tamberg added. “Our parishes and schools are not there to produce revenue for us. They’re there to educate children and provide spiritual welfare for the Catholic people.”

Many observers expect a settlement before or during the Hagenbach trial, either a so-called global settlement for all the cases or the first of a string of settlements. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Haley Fromholz last week pushed the trial back a week, saying there were not enough potential jurors after the Fourth of July holiday. But the delay prompted some observers to speculate that the parties were on the verge of a settlement and needed a few more days.

Jury selection is set to begin July 17.

Anderson, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said he doubted Mahony would want to wait for opening arguments.

“That’s an opportunity for us to lay out a long, sordid scenario,” said Anderson. “Their exposure is extraordinary.”

joe.mozingo@latimes.com

Voice from the Desert

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

The Voice from the Desert Blog Has Moved

Saturday, July 14, 2007

L.A. Archdiocese to Pay $600M for Claims

Thursday, July 12, 2007

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