I am conflicted about these lawsuits. Yes, I agree that those harmed by clergy or others working for the Church deserve some kind of compensation for their suffering and any type of treatment they need due to their abuse especially if the abuse later incapacitated them pyschologically, if this can be proven.
The Church has insurance to assist in paying out those just compensations.
My problem is when exhorbatant amounts of money are legally won by letitgants which leads to the Church selling its patrimony or declaring bankruptcy.
Most of the monies the Church has (not all) is given to the Church as a non profit organization. These are contributions not monies from taxes and those contributing can declare their giving as charitable and thus tax deductible.
Thus, even though the Church is being sued, the monies, apart from insurance settlements, is coming from donations that are tax deductible. And all that the Church has in the material sense she has from these charitable contributions.
Is there is case for the Church through civil law to lobby for laws protect charitable institutions that receive charitable contributions which are tax deductible from using these funds and properties to pay exhorbant law suits the Church loses.
19 comments:
"bankruptsy" Oh, really?
"Is there is case for the Church through civil law to lobby for laws protect charitable institutions that receive charitable contributions which are tax deductible from using these funds and properties to pay exhorbant law suits the Church loses."
It seems you suggesting that as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization (organizations whose income comes largely through tax-deductible contributions), the church (and other 501(c)3 groups) should have some kind of special protection from lawsuits.
I can't see it at all. Wrong is wrong, crime is crime, regardless of where an organization gets its income.
If people can show that the institutional hierarchy were covering up crimes, then those people should be made to pay.
What bothers me about it is that the payments are made from contributions from the laity. So ultimately, the laity are the ones shouldering the financial burdens for the crimes of the hierarchy.
The fact of the matter is that government institutions like public schools cannot be sued in the same manner as private charitable institutions. Are you in favor of legal protection from punitive lawsuits for the government where abuse of all kinds is much higher and no similar protection for the Church?
One of the scarier realities of the sex abuse crisis is the phenomenon of various states waiving the statute of limitations for lawsuits against the Catholic Church. Statistically, your children are just as likely (or even MORE likely) to be abused by a scoutmaster, physician, school teacher or any Protestant minister of any denomination. Why then are legislatures not waiving the statute of limitations for lawsuits against physicians, school districts or the United Methodist Church?
The sexual abuse crisis is a shameful horror. But it is not exclusive to our Church and society's double standard and hatred for the Church continues to reveal itself.
Governments and government agencies, including public schools, enjoy sovereign immunity.
Yes, I am in favor of sovereign immunity for government agencies, including public schools.
However, lawsuits against government agencies CAN go ahead under a different set of legal rules.
For Georgia: "Section 50-21-23 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (OCGA) says that the state waives its sovereign immunity [lawsuits can move forward] "for the torts of state officers and employees while acting within the scope of their official duties or employment," as long as the tort (the harmful act) in question is not included in the list of exceptions laid out in section 50-21-24."
Also, "That immunity (sovereign immunity) has been conditionally waived as long as injury claimants follow a strict set of rules for notifying the government of the claim and providing details about the underlying incident within a statutorily-mandated time period. But failure to follow the rules can result in loss of your right to get compensation for injuries and other damages."
Exactly Marc and it is the height of duplicity that Mike supports protection for government agencies and not the Church. No one hears of public school boards selling property to pay off punitive lawsuits.
I think to a good discussion could be had concerning the statues of limitations and the reason for these
Allan, it is not duplicitous to support sovereign immunity laws for governments and government agencies.
We ALL benefit from them, and they are necessary for the common good.
Government agencies CAN be sued. Government agencies, including schools, pay huge settlements in lawsuits.
"COMMERCE CITY, Colo. -- Adams County School District 14 has agreed to a $5 million settlement with a former student who was sexually abused by her teacher."
"The city’s school district will pay two women, who were sexually abused by a teacher’s aide at School 10 more than a decade and half ago, $325,000 in a settlement. Under the settlement agreement, one woman will get $175,000 and another will get $150,000, according to public records. School board members approved the settlement on Nov. 26, 2019."
"New Mexico Public Schools Insurance Authority has paid $1.2 million to settle a claim filed by the guardians of a student who was sexually abused by a former assistant basketball coach at Pecos High School, a spokesman for the insurer confirmed Friday."
If you want to abolish sovereign immunity and you want to force government agencies to sell property to pay lawsuits, prepare for the one lawsuit against the Richmond Hill government that will leave you without police and/or fire protection when the fire department and police headquarters are sold.
Fine Mike, it is just amazing to me you would not lobby for the same protections for the Church for the same reasons, rather amazing actually.
Whatever the process, the Church could not be sued for these things if we didn’t allow them to continue. The clergy have a special status so we need to devise a non-democratic method to address these problems.
The real dilemma will soon come when the concept of underage sex is destroyed and those laws removed.
Allan, your faux amazement is unconvincing and childish.
Would you remove the sovereign immunity protection for police and fire departments, exposing yourself and your community to grave danger? Of course not.
Would you protect ALL 501(c)3 organizations from lawsuits? If so, you would be impeding justice for the abused. You would be practicing the same kind of run around that has gotten so many bishops in hot water.
Can't you hear the cries now? "They're hiding behind the law!"
I would like to comment, but II dislike Google, Facebook and Cookies.
I'm not sure how removing sovereign immunity for police and fire departments puts the community in grave danger. But there are bars to suing institutions (corporations, etc.) for the actions of their members or employees. One has to show certain things to "pierce the corporate veil," which usually protects an entity from actions of its employees when those employees act outside the scope of their work. As you can assume, that operates in a way similar to sovereign immunity.
Even if the Church has "sovereign immunity" generally, in an instance like the sexual abuse lawsuits, the plaintiffs would probably be able to assign liability to the institution itself based on the institutional cover-up. That isn't true in all instances of sexual abuse when, for example, a priest abused a random person walking down the street, in a way unconnected to his clerical role, and the Church took no part in the attempt to hide liability.
In sum, what you're asking for already exists in a certain way. The problem is that the institution is itself liable for its role, in many cases.
Bee here:
Although it is against my own interests, I think the Church should not be protected from these financial judgements, because I cannot believe leaders of my own Church would allow such harm to children and adolescents. I think the corporate policy that the enablers who brought this to pass were operating under must be absolutely destroyed. Every last nuance of these sins must be brought out into the open and this whole situation must create such outrage that the festering wound of self-protection, denial and excuses is thoroughly obliterated. (If you think new policies in place have taken care of the denial and coverup, I point to one Mr. McCarrick who continues to claim that he did nothing wrong, and his bishop friends who continue to say they knew nothing.)
I think every clergyman who had even remote involvement or knowledge of excusing molesters should be thoroughly ashamed, and have to suffer the chastisement we all are suffering as Catholics.
In addition, I am outraged for all the faithful Catholic mothers and fathers who may have doubted their child, but then saw the effects of the molestation, and brought it forward to the pastor or bishop, and were treated to coverups, avoidance, lies, threats, and counter accusations, and instead of justice, received malice. What an incredibly horrific thing for a shepherd to do to a member of his flock.
I know there already was canon law to deal with pedophiles and ephebophiles before all these molestations happened and it was ignored by progressive clerics who recommended rehabilitation. Well, when one deals with sin in such a way, when it is minimized and subverted, eventually, due to God's merciful love, the deed will be exposed and the punishment will be much worse.
The lesson is, either acknowledge your wrongdoing and accept correction with your privacy intact, or face public scrutiny and humiliation and punishment ten times worse than would have been meted out before.
And whatever else the clergy, all the way up to the Pope, may be hiding now, those sins will be exposed and punished as well. Be forewarned!
God bless.
Bee
All of this is about to become almost unimaginably more horrifying. The complicity and participation of clergy is going to pale compared to the institutional support and participation in outright criminal activities. As bad as it will be, it will correct the balance of the college of cardinals that has been done.
Maybe if the bishops had accepted some responsibility for their errant priests, they would not be in this difficult position?
Fr Kavanaugh says: "Allan, your faux amazement is unconvincing and childish."
Yep, almost exactly like his 'fretting, wringing hands, and sputtering' eh Father?
Bishops covered up for sex abuse, and perpetuated abuse themselves. Then the Church conspired to cover up those sins. Now the Bishops are mostly dead, or comfortably retired. There needs to be justice served. If the bishops are no longer alive to serve the penalty for their crimes then the Church that covered up for them will have to. Don’t tell me about schools until you find a principal that systematically covered up for abusive teachers, transferring thrm to other schools and even hiding them in the Blue Ridge mountains so the cops couldn’t find them.
Nice picture for EF Mass on the front---like the gold vestments, a color I rarely if ever see at my parish in 30327---but wonder if 10 altar boys is not a bit excessive for a Mass? We sometimes have that many or more (servers I guess I should say since we do OF) and don't think we need that many at one Mass. But then again, none of the clergy asked me!
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