Saturday, May 19, 2007

RC Diocese Seeks Funds For Abuse Victims

In Roman Catholic parishes around Spokane these days, sermons on the teachings of Jesus are mixed with urgent pleas for money to pay people who were sexually abused by clergy decades ago.

Priests sometimes evoke the parable of the good Samaritan -- who stopped to help a man who had been beaten and robbed when others looked the other way -- as they wage a campaign to overcome the financial fallout from clergy sex abuse in the bankrupt Spokane diocese.

"I've been telling them the focus here is on the children who were hurt and doing what we can to bring them some sort of compensation, some sort of healing," said Rev. Edgar Borchardt, pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in the college and farm town of Pullman, about 80 miles south of Spokane.

A Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan approved last month commits the diocese to pay $48 million -- including $10 million from 82 parishes -- to settle as many as 177 old claims of sexual abuse.

That $10 million is roughly what the diocese's 95,000 parishioners normally put in the collection plate in a year.

Home to Bishop William Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the diocese is the smallest and poorest of five nationwide that have sought bankruptcy protection against clergy sex-abuse lawsuits.

The others are San Diego; Davenport, Iowa; Portland, Ore.; and Tucson, Ariz. Tucson has emerged from bankruptcy protection, and Portland's reorganization plan has been approved.

Skylstad is himself raising an additional $6 million toward the bankruptcy settlement, and Catholic agencies, such as cemeteries, children's homes and charities, are being asked to contribute another $6.5 million.

Over the next few weeks, parish priests will try to sell the settlement to the people in the pews, said Bob Hailey, a Spokane lawyer who is an executive on a grass-roots capital campaign to help parishes raise their share.

How that pitch is made is up to individual priests in each parish, Hailey said.Borchardt's church began its campaign in February, ahead of other parishes.

The congregation's 350 families already have raised -- in cash and pledges -- about 80 percent of the $250,000 assessment the parish is expected to contribute, he said.

"The good Samaritan was not at all responsible for the problem, but he was the one who took care of the problem," Borchardt said.

"We try to keep the focus on the healing of those who survived the abuse and healing of the people in the pews. This has been fairly traumatic for people in the pews, too."

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