Almost $1 billion spent on settling sexual abuse cases...

[Dookus]

by the American Catholic Church.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002184011_churchclaims18.html?syndication=rss

According to that article, over $840,000,000 has already been spent since 1950. Add to that $157,000,000 spent last year alone on new claims (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050218/ts_nm/crime_church_dc_3 ), and the total is just shy of $1,000,000,000.

Please don't turn this into a generic anti-Catholic thread, because they just get locked. But I would like a serious and sensitive discussion about how people, especially Catholics, feel about this amount of money being waylaid from the donors' intended purpose.

Would any non-religious charity be able to keep its tax-exempt status if so much money had been diverted to non-charitable operations?

[arwalden]

1. Wow! That Figure Is STAGGERING!!

That's a LOT of food and medicine. Well... actually I should say that COULD have been a lot of food and medicine.

I think people are numb to such astronomical dollar amounts. Beyond a certain point, it becomes difficult to conceptualize exactly what X-billion dollars means in terms in real-life terms.

How many people would it have fed? How many schools could it have repaired? How many emergency-housing tents could it have set up? How many children could have been immunized? How many AIDS victims could have been made more comfortable in their final days?

[Dookus]

2. A lot, I guess...

And sadly, the number will continue to grow quickly. $157,000,000 million just last year. It won't take long to get up to 2 billion at that rate.

[Yupster]

13. A famous Stalin quote

A single death is a tragedy.
A million deaths is a statistic.

I think it's true that people lose understanding of numbers when they get so high.

[Blue Diadem]

3. The entire situation makes me angry and sick

Although I am not a Catholic, my husband is and in our early years, we attended Catholic Church. What the church has done is IMO, criminal, by hiding the perverts within the church and not handling the situation years ago.

Now, with the payouts for settlements and a large decline in enrollment, some Catholic schools and Churchs are being closed leaving devoted parishioners without a place to worship.

[Nashvilliberal]

4. Many are paying for the actions of a very few.

Every dollar I have ever given, or will ever give, will go toward paying the settlements. The arrogance of some in the Church leadership has cost us dearly. The thing which makes this doubly sad is that the money used for the settlements (and certainly the victims deserve compensation) is money that now will not be available for programs for the poor and disadvantaged.

[Dookus]

6. This raises

an interesting public policy question: should such money be tax-free for the Church? It's clearly not being used for charitable purposes, but rather, to make good on its mistakes.

If *I* had to pay a court settlement, for whatever reason, it wouldn't be using pre-tax dollars. Should the church be given that benefit?

[Wat_Tyler]

5. Holy shit! Who's paying for this?

The little old ladies who put what they can of their pension on the collection plate?

[Dookus]

7. Yes, of course

it's the contributions of the membership that pay for this.

Personally, I would like to see that outlawed. I believe the church should either have to use non-tax-exempt money to pay these settlements, or be forced to sell some of its assets to cover the payments. I think using "charitable" donations for this purpose is inexcusable.

[Wat_Tyler]

8. It's unjustifiable.

As the numbers of churchgoers decline, there must be a steady income coming in from property sales.

[Dookus]

9. the biggest Catholic church in my town

sits on a huge plot of ocean-front property, among houses that sell for 2 million dollars or more. The church-owned property is probably 10 times bigger than the average lot in that area.

Conservatively, it is a probably a $10-15 million dollar plot of land.

[Nashvilliberal]

12. It sounds to me like your real agenda...

is to force the closing of Catholic churches.

[Dookus]

15. You're simply

wrong.

Is it possible to have a discussion of ANYTHING that's less-than-positive about the church without someone claiming an ulterior motive?

It was the "let's not talk about it" mindset that CAUSED a lot of these problems in the first place. How many people were finally able to come forward with their stories because it was finally talked about?

Sorry, I don't subscribe to the idea that the bad should never be discussed.

I think my point is one worth discussing - why should a billion dollars be collected and disbursed tax-free under the guise of a charity when the payments are decidedly not charitable? Do you have an opinion on that? Or do you just want to bear false witness about my motives?

[Nashvilliberal]

10. self-delete

[Wat_Tyler]

11. Then, the question is - how can you stop the Church from doing that?

That's a tough one.

[Blue Diadem]

14. Boston Globe investigation: portion of claims covered by insurance

This particular article is about the insurer filing a countersuit.

http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/stories5/042904_suit.htm

[arwalden]

17. Life Insurance Doesn't Pay For Folks Who Commit Suicide...

So the following argument from the insurance companies makes perfectly logical sense.

>> "There is no coverage for damages which were the proximate result of the intentional criminal conduct of priests who committed acts of sexual abuse against minors," the company argued in the counterclaim filed in US District Court in Boston." <<

Insurance is supposed to be a way for many people to pool resources and minimize financial burden of unexpected liability or catastrophe, accident, etc. etc. It ought not be continually used as a magic-cookie-jar full of 'free' money for victims' settlements.

[Dookus]

19. Interesting point

if Insurance companies have to pay these settlements, then the cost is passed on to all their clients, not just catholics.

Insurance should not cover penalties due to criminal activities.

[Blue Diadem]

20. I was shocked to see the insurance company had already

paid $2 million in settlements.

I wonder if the Church can even obtain current policies and if they can, the amount for premiums surely must be staggering. Another added expense to the parishioner.

[arwalden]

21. I Doubt It... Insurance Companies Are Getting More Strict

with their disclaimers and limitations. They are even refusing to offer liability coverage for families who have Dobermans or Pit Bulls. It makes sense that they would simply refuse to cover sexual abuse settlements as well.

[OneBlueSky]

16. they can afford it . . .

maybe not individual parishes or dioceses, but the Church certainly can . . . maybe they'll divest a little of their fortune to help out the locals who have been bitten big by this . . . or will they just let the dioceses handle it by selling off Church properties (as they did in Boston)? . . . are the Vatican treasures more important than the people? . . .

um . . . yes . . .

[Dookus]

18. Good question

undoubtedly some parishes are being hit very hard by the costs of this.

But the Boston example you gave shows that they'd prefer the American church to pay for all this itself.