$3 million in legal fees paid by Kansas City Catholic diocese in the past fiscal year

Judy L. Thomas
Kansas City Star
May 10, 2015

The Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese paid more than $3 million in legal fees on sexual abuse cases in the past fiscal year, raising the total litigation costs to more than $10 million since one of its priests was charged with producing child pornography four years ago.

The figures, published in a diocesan report covering the year ending June 30, 2014, don’t include legal costs incurred after that date associated with a $9.95 million settlement in October involving 32 victims, some of whom alleged abuse going back several decades. The diocese said last week that those numbers weren’t yet available.

Even without those figures, the diocese has paid more than $27 million in settlements and litigation costs related to priest sex abuse cases in the past four years.

A recent report released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops shows that the Kansas City diocese isn’t alone. Since 2004, the Catholic Church nationwide has paid nearly $3 billion in costs related to the sex abuse scandal, according to an annual survey by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

In fiscal 2014, dioceses and religious orders spent $119 million on settlements to victims, therapy and attorneys’ fees, the survey found.

More than half of those payments — 53 percent — were settlements to victims, with legal fees accounting for an additional 24 percent. The remainder went toward support for offenders and therapy for victims and offenders.

The church also spent nearly $32 million on safe environment training programs, background checks and other protective efforts.

The survey was included in an annual audit of how dioceses are complying with the requirements that U.S. bishops established in their 2002 Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

The survey found that the number of priest sex abuse cases in the church continues to decrease. More than 80 percent of the 294 credible allegations of abuse reported in the past fiscal year dated back more than 25 years, with most occurring from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Though the report showed positive progress, “we must remain ever vigilant in the protection of children,” Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a news release last month.

“Though our promise to protect and heal made in 2002 remains strong, we must not become complacent with what has been accomplished,” Kurtz said. “It is my hope and prayer that as we continue to fulfill our promise, the Church will help model ways of addressing and bringing to light the darkness and evil of abuse wherever it exists.”

In Kansas City, the diocese spent about $6 million in the past fiscal year on sexual abuse cases, according to the diocesan report. Among the expenses:

▪ Nearly $2.9 million in legal fees and $2.3 million for settlements of “historical abuse claims,” or lawsuits that alleged abuse dating back decades.

▪ More than $200,000 in legal costs and $430,000 for settlements of lawsuits filed against the diocese involving Shawn Ratigan, the former priest convicted in 2012 of producing child pornography. (The diocese said it did not pay any legal costs for Ratigan’s personal defense.)

▪ More than $239,000 for legal proceedings involving a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed against the diocese in 2011 by victims with whom the diocese settled for $10 million in 2008. That lawsuit resulted in a $1.1 million settlement in August.

The diocese also spent about $100,000 on the office of its ombudsman, an independent contractor whose job is to field and investigate reports of sexual abuse, and nearly $200,000 on its Office of Child and Youth Protection.

The expenses are covered by the Diocesan Property and Casualty Insurance Program, which the diocese said is funded from insurance premiums paid by all parishes, schools and other diocesan institutions, along with interest income on property and casualty reserves.

Local Catholic Tom White, a vocal critic of how Bishop Robert Finn handled the Ratigan case, said it’s disheartening to see how much money the sexual abuse scandals have cost the church, especially in attorneys’ fees. Finn resigned last month.

“If there’s money to be paid to the victims, by all means they should get their just deserts for their pain, because it will never go away,” he said. “But the rest of that money could have gone to feed the poor or any of those kinds of things that are in current need.”

Kansas City priest defends Finn, alleges ulterior motive in bishop's prosecution

Brian Roewe
National Catholic Reporter
May 6, 2015

A priest's letter alleging political motivations for the prosecution of Bishop Robert Finn prompted responses Wednesday from both the local prosecutor and the apostolic administrator of the Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese.

Fr. Gregory Lockwood, parochial administrator of Christ the King Parish in southern Kansas City and a close friend of Finn, said while mistakes occurred in the case of former priest Shawn Ratigan, currently serving 50 years in prison for child pornography, he questioned the legal process that led to Finn's 2012 misdemeanor conviction.

Finn resigned April 21 as head of the diocese, with Kansas City, Kan., Archbishop Joseph Naumann named as its administrator. In October 2011, Finn and the diocese were charged with failure to report suspected child abuse in relation to Ratigan, who pled guilty in 2012 on federal charges of possessing and producing child pornography. In September 2012, a Jackson County judge found Finn guilty on one misdemeanor count of failing to report.

"There were definitely mistakes made in handling the situation by people who, it turned out, were in over their heads, but there was never any malice, or impulse to cover up anything," Lockwood said in a letter inserted in the weekend bulletin addressed to Christ the King parishioners.

He continued: "There is no forbearance or forgiveness for this man who pled no contest to a politically motivated charge filed by an ambitious prosecutor with strong ties to the abortion industry, so that he might save his local church the pain and cost of a public trial. The statute used was not even applicable to what happened, but such is our legal and political society."

The accusation of ulterior motives led Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, who brought the charges against Finn, to respond by saying Lockwood's letter contained "misinformation" and "misstatements."

"I run this office as a prosecutor, not a politician, and I have sought convictions for those who have harmed our community," she wrote in her own letter -- a copy of which was obtained by the Kansas City Star -- to Christ the King parishioners and Naumann.

"As your prosecutor, I am guided by this truth: no one is above the law, no matter our position or title. Children especially nee this to be true, and abused children's lives may depend on it," Baker wrote.

In his own brief statement, Naumann said there's nothing to gain "by picking at old wounds."

"While everyone has a right to free expression, in my opinion it serves no good purpose at this point to rehash a story that has had so many tragic consequences. There is nothing to be gained by picking at old wounds and speaking uncharitably about one another," he said.

Addressing descriptions by Lockwood of "champagne corks popped" and celebrations following Finn's exit as head of the diocese, Naumann said he was "disheartened" that some have responded with attacks on Finn and the church.

"My prayer is that when the new Bishop arrives he will find a Catholic community united and eager to work with him in making the love of Jesus more alive and tangible in our community," the archbishop said.

In his letter, Lockwood, who also serves as secretary for seminarians in the diocesan vocations office, attributed Finn's resignation to "a long, bitter, nasty campaign by many of our brothers and sisters, who, for whatever reason, were convinced that he needed to go." He said the push for Finn's departure had less to do with the Ratigan affair and more so with Finn rejecting "their view of church reality" largely tied to Vatican II ideas.

"If this had happened on another, more popular bishop's watch, the aftermath we have seen would not have occurred, because the motivation for the mob-scene that ensued was Bishop Finn's fidelity to a classical concept of the church, not the cover-up of any misconduct," he wrote.

"No one has won anything here; we've all lost. An honorable man has been unjustly disgraced, and we have sacrificed his dignity and our own in a rush to punish and destroy, things antithetical to everything our common faith represents," Lockwood said.

Bishop Robert Finn: the rest of the story

Fr. Thomas P. Doyle
National Catholic Reporter
May 5, 2015

The Vatican's sterile announcement of Bishop Robert Finn's resignation was a typical but unsuccessful attempt by the Holy See to sanitize the harsh reality of a failed bishop. It was a removal disguised as a resignation. The absolute need for accountability of bishops would have been far better served had Finn been publicly removed rather than offered the thin camouflage of resignation.

The reason for his resignation in the oblique canonical language of the announcement was his inability to continue to fulfill his office because of "another serious reason" (canon 401.2). Much of the media focus was on Finn's 2012 conviction of failure to report Shawn Ratigan, a Kansas City priest who had child pornography on his laptop. There's a lot more to it than that. Whether Finn was an overall effective leader was the main point that Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, the Vatican investigator, looked at. One of his worst failures as a leader was the disastrous way he handled clergy sex abuse cases. This is the other chapter of the story.

Between 2005, the year Finn was appointed, and 2015, there have been at least 94 cases filed against the diocese. Some of these involved allegations of serious sexual abuse that goes back decades -- abuse covered up and mishandled by Finn's predecessors. In many cases, Finn was not part of the cover-up because it was all out in the open by the time he arrived. His failure, the extent of which cannot be understated, was in the way he responded to the victims who resorted to the civil courts. And, as an aside, the main reason most victims have gone to the civil courts is because they have been denied any justice, support or deserved compensation by the church's administration.

Finn pretty much ignored victims. In his 10 years as bishop, he met with two and possibly a couple more, but not to extend pastoral care. His meetings with victims were all part of legal proceedings. From all sources queried, there is no evidence he ever reached out as a caring shepherd to any of the people whose lives had been ravaged by the Kansas City priests.

He did his dirty work through his lawyers. Although some bishops when asked about the toxic antics of their attorneys try to dodge the issue by claiming it was the lawyers and not them, the cold fact is that the bishop hires the lawyers, sees that they get paid, and approves their strategies. Unlike the victims' attorneys, who are paid on a contingency basis, the church's lawyers are paid by the hour whether they win or lose. The lawyers for the Kansas City diocese were paid a lot under Finn's reign.

Then we come to the long, ponderous journey of some of the abuse cases through the legal system. The victims' attorneys, basically one firm, were faced with a constant barrage of motions, deposition notices and other legal roadblocks to prolong the inevitable. The only winners were the lawyers, and the major losers were the laypeople of the diocese who actually provided the money through donations to pay for Finn's campaign against the victims.

The legal costs to the diocese are in neighborhood of $24 million. Included in this amount is a fine of $1.1 million imposed by the court because the bishop failed to honor some of the terms of one of the settlements. He, and consequently the diocese, agreed to do certain things that they intentionally failed to do. The people of the diocese paid for it.

I was an expert witness in some of the civil cases. At the end of some of my reports in the section of expert opinions, I wrote, "The diocese has continued to re-victimize the victims and to harass their families by means of a protracted legal process." The defense lawyers never challenged me on this during my seemingly endless deposition. It was true. Hiding behind the abuse of the legal system looked like a safe way to clobber the victims without being blamed, but it didn't work.

The harassment came in a number of forms. I was deposed in one case, a case of wrongful death brought by the parents of a 14-year-old boy who had committed suicide after being sexually abused. In that case, the defense lawyers took 200 depositions and filed approximately 2,000 motions, many of which were motions for dismissal. This was an incredible waste of money and time, especially since the diocese settled the case for more than $2 million.

One of Finn's staunchest defenders has been Bill Donohue of the so-called Catholic League for Civil Rights. Donohue held a rally in Kansas City in defense of Finn in 2011. This was when Finn was on trial for failing to report suspected child abuse. Donohue proclaimed, "There was no complainant and no violation of law."

For the nonviolation, Ratigan was sentenced to 50 years in prison, and Donohue revealed another level of his ignorance about child abuse. A month later, he attacked Jon David Couzens, an abuse victim. Couzens brought a suit against the diocese that ended in a settlement. Donohue called it a "soap opera yarn" and branded Couzens not only a lair but said he had been implicated in a "drug-related murder." One of the victims in this "soap opera yarn" was the young boy who took his own life at age 14 after being sexually assaulted. Imagine how his parents felt when they saw their son's abuse referred to in such derisive and dishonest terms.

Couzens sued Donohue for defamation. The case was dismissed not, as Donohue erroneously reported in a recent news release, because it was "bogus." It was dismissed because it was filed in the wrong state. The reason had nothing to do with the substance -- but then, accuracy and facts have never been a barrier to Donohue's rantings.

Donohue's credibility is close to zero, so ordinarily, I would not waste a sentence on him. However, many people make the egregious mistake of thinking he speaks for the Catholic church. His regular ravings against the victims of clergy sex abuse could be dismissed as such by most people, but they are deeply hurtful to the victims and their families, who were suffering enough without having Donohue spew his venom on them.

Finn could have stopped Donohue, but he didn't. Over the years, Donohue has expressed great concern for doctrinal orthodoxy and obedience, which appear to have supplanted basic Christian decency and charity.

Another sad chapter in the Kansas City leadership vacuum was Finn's unsuccessful campaign to close down the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, the world's oldest and largest survivor support organization. He did this in cahoots with Cardinal Raymond Burke of St. Louis and Burke's successor, Archbishop Robert Carlson. They had their lawyers try to force SNAP to disclose confidential communications with victims. SNAP had to defend itself in the legal arena, and this was costly.

The lawyers' game plan was to accomplish what the bishops hoped for; namely, the hastening of SNAP's demise by draining its resources through useless litigation. SNAP was not a party to either of the cases used as launchpads for this legal maneuver, but that didn't matter: SNAP is a threat to the bishops, so it had to be snuffed out. The outcome: Finn and Burke have both been sidelined by the pope, and SNAP is still standing. So who was on solid ground in that dispute?

The real hero in that nightmare was SNAP's national director, David Clohessy. He withstood the withering attacks of the lawyers; he protected the victims' privacy; and he survived the vicious and dishonest attacks on him personally and on SNAP by Donohue.

While a few have suggested that Finn was ousted for ideological reasons, nothing could be further from the truth. Finn had to go, not because he is an ecclesiastical conservative who tried to take the diocese backward in time and re-gild the monarchy, but because he either forgot or never fully realized that when Christ referred to "the least of my brothers," he was referring to those most debased and rejected. In the church of Kansas City, the "least" were those who needed Christ's love the most: the people violated by the church's own priests.

[Dominican Fr. Thomas P. Doyle is a canon lawyer and longtime advocate for victims abused by Catholic clerics. He is also co-author of the 2006 book Sex, Priests and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church's 2,000-Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse.]

Cardinal Burke renews attack on 'Pope's theologian' Kasper

Christa Pongratz-Lippett
The Tablet
April 30, 2015

In a long interview in the German daily Die Welt on 24 April, Cardinal Raymond Burke renewed his attack on Cardinal Walter Kasper, whose “merciful” solution for remarried divorcees who wish to receive Communion was discussed at last October’s Extraordinary Synod.

“We are bound by the Magisterium. But some Synod Fathers, above all Cardinal Kasper, want to change it. So I had to make myself very clear. Clashes at Synods, incidentally, are nothing unusual. Think of the early Councils, the Arian heresy, for instance, when Athanasius even became physically aggressive,” Cardinal Burke recalled.

The cardinal said a change to church teaching at the next synod in October would present him with a dilemma: “I would have to speak to the Holy Father and ask him how I can remain loyal to the truth and at the same time not break my vow of obedience,” he said adding, “That is precisely why I speak out so clearly. The Holy Father should know that not everyone thinks like Cardinal Kasper.” The German cardinal has been praised by Francis and nicknamed "the Pope's theologian".

Cardinal Burke also described homosexuality as an “ailment” which was not genetic but largely depended on a person’s environment. He also recalled that St John Paul II had ruled out women’s ordination “once and for all”.

Bail revoked: William Lynn going back to prison

MaryClare Dale
NBC Philadelphia
April 30, 2015

A Roman Catholic church official was sent back to prison Thursday after the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court reinstated his 2012 child endangerment conviction over his handling of priest sexual abuse complaints.

Monsignor William Lynn, the longtime secretary for clergy at the Philadelphia archdiocese, is the first U.S. church official ever prosecuted or convicted in the clergy abuse scandal.

A judge on Thursday agreed that Lynn's case presented a "novel" issue that she could have gotten wrong when she sent the case to trial: the question of whether Lynn actually "supervised" children under the law in 1998, when the boy at issue in Lynn's case was molested by a parish priest. But in a case full of twists and turns, the state Supreme Court this week said he did and called his conviction legal.

So after 18 months in prison and 16 months on house arrest at a city rectory, the 64-year-old Lynn — wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt instead of his usual black shirt and collar — found himself back before Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina. The issues raised in Lynn's case have entangled prosecutors, defense lawyers and at least 10 Pennsylvania judges since 2005, when the city's top prosecutor blasted the archdiocese after a grand jury investigation into 63 accused priests but concluded the law applied only to parents and caregivers.

A new prosecutor felt differently and in 2011 brought charges against Lynn but not against longtime Philadelphia Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who died in 2012.

Lynn had served half his minimum three-year sentence when the state Superior Court threw out his conviction in December 2013 and ordered him released. But the state Supreme Court reversed that decision in the 4-1 opinion Monday.

"His conviction's back in. He should go back in," trial prosecutor Patrick Blessington argued Thursday to Sarmina, who had presided over his three-month trial.

She had allowed the jury to hear weeks of agonizing testimony from adults who said they were sexually assaulted by Philadelphia priests to show what prosecutors said was the church's pattern of transferring predators to unsuspecting parishes and hiding complaints in locked files.

Lynn had control of those "secret archives" and perhaps wanted to address the brewing crisis, Sarmina found. But he stood silent when Bevilacqua had his list of known and suspected predator priests destroyed.

Defense lawyers will now challenge other aspects of his trial, especially Sarmina's decision to let about 20 other church accusers testify about abuse they said they suffered decades ago when their allegations were not directly part of the case.

The conviction involved only Lynn's oversight of the Rev. Edward Avery, who admitted assaulting an altar boy at a northeast Philadelphia parish where he landed after earlier complaints about his relationship with another boy.

"There are enough unusual issues in this case (that Lynn) ultimately could be exonerated, and he'll have done his whole sentence," defense lawyer Alan Tauber, one of Lynn's trial lawyers, said as Lynn was handcuffed and taken into custody.

labor leaders, union members join rally against Cordileone's new handbook language

Mandy Erikson
National Catholic Reporter
April 28, 2015

Labor leaders and union members joined teachers, parents and students from archdiocesan high schools here Monday to rally against Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone's proposal to change aspects of their employment.

Gathering in front of the archdiocesan offices at 1 Peter Yorke Way, a crowd of more than 200 protested the archbishop's plan to reclassify the teachers as "ministers," thereby providing them with fewer legal protections, and to insert a morality clause into their handbook.

The morality clause condemns same-sex marriage, contraception and use of reproductive technology, among other things, and expects employees to accept "these truths" outside the workplace.

"The church has told us that it honors all civil rights and labor rights," said Art Pulaski, chief officer of the California Labor Federation, speaking before the crowd gathered in the blocked-off street. "You cannot profess social justice if within your own walls you refuse to practice it. We call on the archbishop to adhere to the principles of social justice."

The morality clause and minister reclassification would affect teachers and staff members at four high schools: Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory and St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco, Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, and Marin Catholic High School in Kentfield.

GSR-video.jpgGlobal Sisters Report just celebrated its first year! Watch a video highlighting some of the stories that have been featured on the site.

In February, the archdiocese released the proposed changes, which are under the purview of the archbishop and not subject to contract negotiations between the archdiocese and the teachers union. Since then, students, teachers and parents have denounced the changes with demonstrations, rallies and a petition signed by more than 80 percent of teachers at the four schools.

On Monday, the archdiocese released a statement saying that the archbishop met with administrators from the high schools to stress that he has no intention to fire teachers. "The men and women who have been called to a career in Catholic education, and who serve our schools and students with distinction, have our greatest admiration and respect," the statement said.

"There will be no 'witch hunts,' no prying into people's personal lives, no shaming, no hidden agendas," it added. "This is something the Archdiocese has sought to make clear from the beginning."

Paul Hance, a history and English teacher at Serra and member of the executive board for the teachers union, questioned why the morality clause was necessary. "For 40 years, we've served loyally," he said in an interview before the rally, referring to the four decades the schools' teachers union has negotiated with the archdiocese.

"We've never needed this language before," he added. "We sincerely hope that the archbishop will not come to use this language."

Several speaking before the crowd said they felt the morality clause hurt LGBT students as well as those who were conceived through artificial means.

"We are with these kids, some fragile, hurt, lonely and questioning," said Peggy Farrell, an arts teacher at Serra. "This contract and handbook language drives a wedge" between the teachers and the archdiocese, she added. "The only way to heal this broken relationship is to drop the language."

Farrell joined other teachers in saying she prefers to teach at a Catholic school. "I know I uphold my contract," she said. "I teach Catholic values."

At the rally, teachers and labor representatives remembered Peter Yorke, a San Francisco priest and labor leader who died in 1925. They also sang, accompanied by a guitar and trumpet, "Teach acceptance is our call. Love your neighbor as yourself. For God loves us all."

"Teach acceptance" is the phrase the opponents of the archbishop's changes have adopted for their website, Facebook and T-shirts, worn by parents and students at the rally.

Representatives from two dozen labor unions attended the rally, many wearing their own T-shirts from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, National Union of Health Care Workers and others.

Fred Seavey of a health care workers union said he joined the rally "to support the teachers. It's unfair, the archbishop's position, wanting to control their home lives."

Pennsylvania supreme court reinstates conviction of Catholic clergyman in abuse case

Reuters
April 27, 2015

(Reuters) - Pennsylvania's highest court on Monday reinstated the conviction of the first U.S. Catholic church official sent to prison for mishandling sexual misconduct complaints against priests.

In August 2012, a Philadelphia jury found Monsignor William Lynn, 64, guilty of one count of child endangerment for failing to supervise a pedophile priest who eventually sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy in 1999.

That conviction was overturned by the state’s Superior Court in December 2013.

Monday’s ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upholds the original August 2012 judgment.

The high court said Lynn “as a high ranking official in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, was specifically responsible for protecting children from sexually abusive priests.”

Lynn, a former secretary of the clergy for the Philadelphia Archdiocese who oversaw the work of 800 priests, was convicted of covering up sex abuse, often by transferring predatory priests to unsuspecting parishes.

But, in overturning the conviction, a three-judge panel later ruled that the abuse law applied only to those with direct responsibility for the care and welfare of children.

Lynn, one of the highest-ranking clergyman convicted in the U.S. Roman Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal, has been under house arrest since December 2013.

His lead attorney, Thomas Bergstrom, said he will file a motion to continue that status while the defense team takes up issues not yet resolved by the court. Lynn may also appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“That’s an option, but I’m not sure if we’re going to take it,” Bergstrom said. “It’s a waking nightmare. It’s unending. We just have to keep fighting.”

Philadelphia District Attorney R. Seth Williams released a statement on Monday saying his office was “gratified that the court supports our interpretation of the evidence.”

The prosecutor had argued that Lynn violated his duty to protect children from predator priests.

“Today’s announcement sends the clear message that if anyone — priest, layperson, citizen, police officer or elected official — knowingly puts children at risk of being sexually molested, they will be held accountable,” Williams said.

Lynn was accused of allowing the transfer of Father Edward Avery, whom he knew to be a pedophile after complaints surfaced in 1992. Avery was transferred to St. Jerome’s Catholic Church in Philadelphia even after the diocese’s own psychiatrists recommended Avery not be allowed contact with adolescents.

At St. Jerome's, Avery molested an altar boy, prosecutors said. Avery pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison.