Yeah, that was big!! You have a right to be mad at that one. Let us hope that this is the end of the problems for LA.

However, I must point out that the LA diocese did not pay this out willingly, it was forced to pay by the court. Nor was it a plea bargain to avoid some bigger penalty because $660 million is as bad as it gets (again, let us hope). Nor was it an attempt to protect a priest’s reputation since the verdict was very public, all over the press.

However, I agree, this big law suit was due to failed attempts in the past at protecting priests by paying hush money and moving them to other parishes instead of getting rid of them. But at this point, the decision to pay or not to pay is clearly in the hands of the courts not in the diocese’s. And it will be painful, especially for parishoners and good bishops like Card O’Malley who have to take over these ruined diocese, many hard decisions. Many prayers are needed.

Speaking of suing for not removing priests, did you see the article linked to by Spirit Daily on the California Catholic Daily suggesting that dioceses should sue the psychologists who recommended that many of these predators be returned to ministry? It’s a really good point. In a way these bishops were following publicly accepted norms (accepted at least by the mass media) on how to deal with these problems, ask a psychologist and pay lawyers when the psychologists are wrong. Of course, the bishops should have been following more Catholic (and even common sense) norms and simply removed them from ministry.

But this is another case of a secular institution playing the role of the devil, first tempt and then accuse. The popular culture as presented by the mass media first proposes using science and psychology and even lawyers as our new source of moral wisdom and then when some well meaning but perhaps overly trusting bishops are tempted into this wishful thinking the mass media is the first to accuse them of their folly. And if anything the mass media has played a bigger role than the above mentioned judges in spreading pornography far and wide.

Yes, I think the psychologists and lawyers who gave this bad advice should be sued. They should at least be fired. Yet in the wake of the scandals the payrolls of diocese across the country surge with more and more psychologists and lawyers. When will we learn!!

Ave Maria!

Fra roderic

A smaller, poorer church? That will certainly be the case as long as some are ‘protected’ or ‘compensated’.

The perpetrators of these crimes need to be punished but why the innocent parishioners?