It is hard to know how to react to the $660 million settlement reached between the Roman Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles and more than 500 people who had filed sex abuse charges against that city's priests.On one hand, the more than $1 million per victim seems to suggest justice has been done. Nothing can undo the harm of such depraved behavior, but as financial consequences go, this is pretty steep.
It is part of more than $2 billion paid out by the church in the United States to victims of such abuse and their families. That also seems to smack of true repentance.
But there is something missing.
In the years of following the painful stories of the thousands of people who say they were preyed upon by people they looked to as a conduit to God, I have wondered: What if we had an epidemic of pedophile plumbers in America? Or boy-hungry barbers? Or bricklayers with a recurring habit of bedding down with adolescents?
We would have a tidal wave of focused anger designed to do one thing – bring these people to real justice, which many would define as locking them up and throwing away the key.
But plumbers, barbers and bricklayers do not enjoy a hierarchy of shrouded protection from their misdeeds. No one will merely transfer them to another city where they can troll for more victims.
However, that's exactly what has been done for countless priests who have violated one of the most sacred responsibilities of life – to never turn authority over people, especially minors, to some dark purpose.
I mean "countless" literally. There is no count. If we were to know how many Catholic clergy had taken advantage of their station in life over young parishioners, we would recoil in shock.
But still, all of them added together constitute a small slice of the priesthood, and church defenders – and the good priests, who constitute a vast majority – can be forgiven a cry for some objectivity.
For one thing, it's not as though Protestant clergy are without sin in the headlines. It's just that Catholicism is so familiar and identifiable – and unique, with its pyramid of power extending from the pope on down through layers of cardinals and bishops into the ranks of pastors and other clergy, with every stratum bearing some responsibility for hiding the horrible secrets of their predatory brethren.
Who bears more guilt? The priests who sexually victimize minors, or the church officials who have facilitated such horrors over the years by transferring offenders from parish to parish in a sick shell game, hoping to spare Catholicism the sting of scandal?
One thing is certain – neither group is sufficiently represented in prison. All the settlements in the world do a lovely job of soothing the victims with piles of cash, but too many of the truly guilty get away with it for life.
An unknowable number of priests who have done the unspeakable are walking free today, protected by the system's unwillingness to bring the full measure of justice.
We are supposed to feel better because victims can drive Jaguars purchased with the hard-earned money of honorable Catholics who fed the collection plate thinking their offerings would go to save souls, heal the sick or feed the poor.
I can't imagine what it's like to be one of the victims, but I would think my healing would be advanced not by a fatter bank account but by the sound of a heavy iron door closing behind my tormentor forever.
In Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony apologized to the victims for the "sin and crime" of what was done to them.
Part of that sin and crime rests squarely on the shoulders of this man who knowingly sent priests back into the flock with track records of sex offenses against the most vulnerable members of their faith communities.
He says he would have been willing to testify if the cases had gone to trial. But now they won't. Six hundred sixty million dollars buys a lot of silence
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Sotto Voce