Posted on 04/13/2007 1:08:46 PM PDT by siunevada
SPOKANE, Wash. - Spokane Roman Catholic Bishop William Skylstad says today's church parishioners must atone for the actions of pedophile priests decades ago. In a letter in response to calls for his resignation over a proposed $48 million dollar settlement with victims of past clergy abuse, Skylstad says parishioners may not like it, "but that is the way it is."
The 82 parishes in the Eastern Washington diocese are on the hook for contributing $10 million dollars toward the settlement by the end of this year. The settlement could be approved later this month in U-S Bankruptcy Court in Spokane.
Four prominent Catholic businessmen wrote Skylstad saying they don't intend to contribute "a cent" to the settlement and urged him to step aside so another bishop could review the payouts. Skylstad replied that the settlement is necessary to bring the church out of the sex abuse crisis.
The bishop wrote that scarpping the proposed settlement now would not be prudent. The diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December 2004 in the face of a growing number of sex abuse lawsuits.
That would have been much funnier.
Then we'll talk about the rest.
Wow! I didn't know that parishoners in Skylstad's diocese had the authority to choose which candidates got ordained! How else could he justify such an outrageous statement?
That is the WRITER’s statement....NOT the Bishop’s!! Geesh, you’re a FREEPER and you shouldn’t be SPUN so easily!
I wonder how many times the good Bishop looked the other way when informed of a perverted cleric under his watch? If the bishop is going to tell his parishoners that they need to anti up money for clergy abuse that occurred under his watch, then he first needs to admit that he is partially repsonsible for that abuse, and then perhaps he can put up a few grand of his personal assets, just to provide a good example for his flock.
Ping!
"Spokane Roman Catholic Bishop William Skylstad says..."So then, the reporter is lying?
The parishes have to contribute $10M of a $48M settlement....who's footing the other $38M?
Since the supposed statement by the Bishop is not in quotes, we can be pretty sure that the reporter is, shall we say, “paraphrasing,” for motives of his own. Who knows WHAT the bishop actually said, other than the quoted phrase, “that’s the way it is,” and who knows in WHAT context he actually used that phrase.
See the article:
... the actions of pedophile priests decades ago
I doubt most/any of the abuse happened under his watch. He just gets to muck out the stable. If there were clear evidence that he had participated in the abuse, the media would be all over it, and he'd probably be out the door.
Unfortunately, the way our legal system works, the people who are being financially punished for the abuse in many cases are the Catholic laity, not the abusers or the bishops who enabled them. It's the laity who will lose their churches and schools, not the abusers who are long since dead, in jail, or otherwise out of the picture.
Just a thought; the church should sell some of its pricier possessions, say like the bishop's house to meet the settlement. It was the malfesance of the church hierarchy that allowed this scandal to germinate. The higher ups are the ones that should pay.
They've already sold their diocesan chancery building and some land holdings. Some of the money is also coming from insurance payouts.
Skylstad took over Spokane in 1990. Some of these abuse cases apparently go back as far as the 1950’s.
The entire article quotes Skylstad in just a single clause of one sentence. The rest is the author’s characterization
Is this a tool the ACLU/personal injury lawyers are going to use against other churches to close them?
I'm struck that they are settling claims from 30+ years ago. What evidence is there? Sexual abuse is a problem to be dealt with, but it seems that a bad precedent is being set that the accused should automatically settle.
In my younger days I worked as a PI for defense lawyers and you would be stunned at how many men accused of rape were innocent.
No quotes from the Bishop, my friend....no quotes.
Is this a tool the ACLU/personal injury lawyers are going to use against other churches to close them?
Yes. It's setting a very dangerous and frightening precedent ... anti-religious people can essentially circumvent the First Amendment through the civil court system.
I'm struck that they are settling claims from 30+ years ago. What evidence is there? Sexual abuse is a problem to be dealt with, but it seems that a bad precedent is being set that the accused should automatically settle.
Yup, but it's forced by economics. Spokane is facing something like 130 cases. They look at that, see that they can settle all of them for roughly $500,000 each, and determine that they can't possibly bring them to trial for less than that. (Even before considering that they won't win all 130, or maybe even any of them.)
My own diocese just settled for something like $600,000 a case over abuse that took place after the abuser had been forced to leave the priesthood! (The claim was that the church hadn't done enough to tell the city about it, or something like that. As if they had the resources to know where this joker was and what he was doing at all times.)
Now another case from the same abuser has been brought, this time from when he was an active priest. The plaintiffs are asking $10 million. The parish where the abuse evidently took place isn't even in my diocese anymore, though it was 25-30 years ago when the abuse happened. (Lawyers: how does that work?)
Pastors, elders, mullahs, whatever of every religious persuasion need to be very careful. The lawyers can wipe your church out, for offenses committed by people who are long gone.
Just following the AP stylebook. Actual quotes are not as juicy as a summary statement.
A couple of words jumped out of that sentence at me: atone and pedophile.
I wonder if the bishop actually said atone. And we've had a bazillion discussions of the definition of the word pedophile on threads over the past several years. I'd bet he didn't use that word.
It's a nice sentence with some emotional punch but I wonder if it is an accurate reflection of what was actually said.
I took a quick peek at the diocese website but didn't find this letter.
“The parishes have to contribute $10M of a $48M settlement....who’s footing the other $38M?”
The details might be in the Chapter 11 paperwork:
http://www.dioceseofspokane.org/chapter11/chapter11index.htm
I think they’ve sold what real estate they can, I know I posted some stories about the sales when they happened (2005?), and there was some insurance coverage.
$10M from 82 parishes in eastern Washington by the end of the year sounds like a mighty big number to me.
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