By now you all know the details of the settlement that the Archdiocese reached with most of the victims who were filing lawsuits against the Archdiocese. It has been a few weeks since this agreement was reached, and I am sure that everyone in our Catholic community is feeling a wide range of emotions. I know I am.
By now you all know the details of the settlement that the Archdiocese reached with most of the victims who were filing lawsuits against the Archdiocese. It has been a few weeks since this agreement was reached, and I am sure that everyone in our Catholic community is feeling a wide range of emotions. I know I am.
My feelings are very mixed. I am deeply saddened and ashamed by what brought us to this point. The terrible sins committed against these men and women are a blight on our Church. I am glad, however, that we were finally able to communicate to victims that we took their claims and their pain seriously. I still hope that we will be able to do this in a more personal way.
I am worried about the future. While it is good that we were able to protect parish property and savings, the loss of this amount of money will have serious implications on what we can do as an Archdiocese. We exist to serve the local level and to tackle the big issues (social services, advocacy, etc.) that individual parishes cannot do on their own. I especially worry about the continuation of our services to the poor.
I am relieved. This was a terrible process for everyone involved, and I am very aware of how demoralizing it was for you to open the newspaper on Sundays and read yet another story about our failings as an institution. I have heard from many of you about the need for us to reconcile, repent, and renew our Church, and this will be a priority as we move forward.
As we work on moving forward I want to thank you for your support of our priests and ask for your continued encouragement. At our recent Presbyteral Assembly the pain and confusion of our priests was very apparent. This is another reason why this settlement is so important. I also must note that the encouragement and support I have received from our priests has been a great blessing to me.
We don’t yet know all of the implications, both financial and otherwise, of the settlement. The work we did earlier this spring to cut the budget in anticipation of a settlement and legal costs will help, but it is clear that we will have to do more. The Finance Council of the Archdiocese met last week, and the staff is prepared to do more work to address the budget once we have made a decision how to finance the settlement. Please be assured that we will continue to approach our new financial realities carefully and with fidelity to our mission.
At the bishops’ meeting in St. Louis last week, I received many words of support from my brothers in the episcopacy about our local situation. We talked about other issues as well, and a full day was devoted to issues of great pastoral concerns to the Church. This was not a distraction from our immediate problems, but this discussion helped to put those problems into the broader context of how we got where we are. This allowed us to locate these issues in our prayer before God.
As Catholic Christians, we believe in the gift of the Holy Spirit to help us deal with our pain and imperfections while continuing to build the Kingdom. While it is tempting to retreat, we need this gift now more than ever to reclaim our mission of proclaiming the good news to a broken world. This is everyone’s task. As we move forward, we must remember that God’s love and our faith in that love will carry us through everything.
