Facing mounting lawsuits, Catholic dioceses turn to bankruptcy

For a publication that prides itself on being cutting edge, The Economist is certainly behind on this one. "Facing mounting lawsuits, Catholic dioceses turn to bankruptcy." Editors, can I clue you in on something? The first bankruptcy filing in the U.S. took place in Spokane, Washington, in 2004, which is nearly seven years ago. Milwaukee is now the eighth diocese in the U.S. to seek legal financial protection. I'd simply suggest that you take a look at your headlines before you publish them to make sure they at least sound up-to-date.

Polish.pincone apparently stood on a pine needle and lost his concentration.

The headline was "Chapter 11 Verse 8". That was informative.

Verse 8. Lots of lawsuits. The number of lawsuits is climbing.

Get it?

In my work with abused children, I found that some victims react to abuse by becoming perpetrators themselves. Others go the opposite direction and become firmly resolved to never harm other people and to never make someone feel the way they felt.
These groups that sue the churches are only creating new victims. The people who send their children to the parish school or attend the church are the ones who suffer from these bankruptcies.
These lawsuits are not about justice. They are about greed and anger. That is why they go after the church community as a whole. If they just want justice they should sue the individual people responsible, not the entire institution. Like most civil suits, this is more about money than justice. What justice is there in creating new victims?

Yung American it is about the church! The church hid these pedophiles and lied on their behalf for decades. I say crush them. Bring them to their knees. Pound a stake thru their hearts like the priest did to little Johnny. I’m only disappointed they can’t sue Rome and gets their hands on those assets!!!

YungAmerican/

As a Catholic, I disagree with you. Catholic priests take a vow of poverty and are indeed poor. Since the American legal system prevents defendants from claims driving any individual into economic destitution, suing individual priests will not get victims a dime.

little_adolf/

Err, no. The story the Church systematically hiding and lying for pedophile priests is a popular myth, greatly exaggerated beyond its isolated extent. But people do love a story involving sex, religion and criminality...

little_adolf/

Ah s**t, my comment got cut off...

Anyways, it's important to remember that these priest sex abuse cases happened across decades and the society's perception of adolescent sexual abuse and its responses to it were vastly lenient once compared to our standards today. Secrecy and a slap on the wrist was the order of the day for such sordid affairs in the olden days of the 20th century, and this applied to not just the Church but the wider society as a whole, unfortunately...

Curate's Egg and little_adolph further illustrate my point that these lawsuits are all about the money.
little_adolph wrote "I’m only disappointed they can’t sue Rome and gets their hands on those assets!!!"
Curate's Egg wrote "suing individual priests will not get victims a dime."

What is the going fair market price for abuse? How much money will make the abuse acceptable? How much money will restore innocence to the victims and erase their pain? Not everything in life can be reduced to money. When people do make it about money, greed and anger (not justice) become the driving motives. And again, where does the money end up coming from? From the pockets of lots of common everyday people who had nothing to do with the abuse and may even have family members that were abused. It's madness.

Even more maddenning is the fact that in these type of suits the victims often end up with small amounts of money compared to the attorneys who end up with millions.

the economist, and every media outlet for that matter, has covered the story of bishops moving around pedophiles and now that its exposed people should be held accountable and billions of dollars in lawsuits should come, they say.

what people don't get is that none of this was illegal. employers (a diocese in this case) were not required to notify the authority's if they suspected (or knew) that an employee committed a crime.

i live in Ohio and it is actually illegal under the law to fire a public school teacher who has been alleged of child molestation. the school is only aloud to legally fire him if convicted in criminal court . this almost never happens .

The hand wringing over pedophile scandals in The Catholic Church is missing the point. The Church, as the preponderate religious leader,
ought to have a perfect grasp of human needs. The Creator, through Its agency of Nature, blessed Humanity with the absolutely powerful instinct in sex, which is the most thoroughly efficient dynamic to safeguard our survival. To insist on the spiritual preeminence of sexual abstinence as the most divinely bequeathed privilege of all spiritual-loving persons is fatuous and destructive. No one truly comes to understand the designs of The Father, by setting oneself against the very dynamics that The Divinity conferred on Humanity.

@ the sovereign

unless your dan brown then you know that jesus died as a 33 year old virgin

Dear Ned26,

Well I'm afraid you have to take the word of "Saint" Paul and his ilk about the virginity bit. The fact that Paul never even met his saviour and clearly had a large number of big axes to grind does somewhat cast his and his followers' testimony into doubt. Why not try scientific analysis for a change instead of pure faith.

Chapter 11 verse 8 caught my eye but it more accurately could read chapter 11 verse 9, with more on the horizon. The first diocese to file bankruptcy was Portland Oregon in 2004 followed by Tucson, Spokane, San Diego, Fairbanks, Society of Jesus Oregon Province, Davenport, Wilmington and Milwaukee. The decision to file Bankruptcy by Dioceses and Religous Orders is a unique business and management tactic for a note for profit business. If the past is predictor of the future, what is still coming will be larger than the Exon Valdez or BP Gulf disasters. Ireland now knows its history of priest child abuse, the United Kingdom is awaking, Belgium has opened her eys and Germany with the Popes visit in September will too awake.

@curates egg; ah yes the church did systematically hide these abuses. You can start with the current pope no less for an example.

This institution is evil.
Institutions are NOT needed in order for one to lead a religious life, if one so chooses.
The Vatican is all about political power over people's minds, as it has been since its foundation as a Papacy.
It tries to hide this power as 'goodness'.
Once again it has been seriously exposed, but with its interests being so vested, no doubt it will survive.
Even Tony Blair has chosen to sign up as a full member!

@ned26
There is a difference between "know" and "believe", isn't there?

I think that these Catholic Church bashers would have a lot more credibility, if we could believe that all of this was ONLY about abusive priests.
Unfortunately, underneath it all, I get a sense that what they are really saying to the Catholic Church is -
"1. I do not agree with your teachings.
2. I resent that you have so much influence in the world.
3. I want to find a way to hurt you. "

''I want to find a way to hurt you. "
Not really at all.
The institution just needs to be abolished, not ''hurt''.
After all, why does one need to be a member of an institution in order to be a 'Christian'?
Muslims for example, don't need such institutionalisation, and many obviously lead religious lives. Why do some Christians feel that such props are essential to their religiosity?
I don't understand at all how such need is 'religious'.

Well at last, some comments about the abuses of the catholic church, its not much but surelly better than wat we see every day, as in nothing. I believe its a shame that it is the archdiocese that must pay for all the well deserve and invisible "gentle punishments" of the catholic church, it should be the hole vatican!!. I really would like to know the total amount of assests of the whole catholic church, well my friend this is a data that any of us will ever know!!!!! because it is simply too much, bilinons of dollars at the least.

BUT WHAT I LIKE THE MOST FROM THE catholic church IS THAT THEIR PERSONNEL HAVE MOST OF THE TIME ACTED TOTALLY IN THE OPOSITE OF WHAT THEY PREACHED. AND THE JOKE ABOUT IT IS THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE STILL BELIEVES IN SANTA.... HUMAN KIND DOSENT WANT TO LEARN FROM HISTORY......

Why a lot of people dont want to see this????.......well first we have ignorance, if your not educated you cant think in a critique kind of way. Second, like the origins of the creation of the church (creating a power,and still is) church alows the ones who suport it, even if they know all the rape, crimes and thievery going on, to share a certain amount of power with them if they close their eyes on what they see, at the end the church is not about GOD but about MANAGING IGNORANCE AND CREATING POWER from it.

I RECOMEND TO ALL OF YOU these readings, BECAUSE INSTRUCT OURSELFS WE MUST:

The author: DESCHNER, KARL HEINZ
The books: CRIMINAL HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY (catholic church)

there is so much things to say about it that there are at least over 7 tomes of them... Good reading and education!!

Tell me something before I go, did Jesus had a church, well he was jewish, but did he told his preayer and preached in a millions worth of assets church?? what did he thaught about these kind of establishment??
GOD is about doing what is the best for our brothers and sisters, not to try to appear doing so and behind raping one of your daugthers of sons.

Stop calling it by the establishment's euphemism "abuse" and say what it really is: "Child Rape".

@radwrite: Actually I find your post incredibly offensive, and dismissive towards those who have been vitims of the churches crimes, the fact is that these abuses of minors, these sexual violations stand on their own. The church must be held to account, they are not above the law.