Render Unto Rome_ The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church - Jason Berry [200]
By the lights of apostolic succession, the American bishops’ youth protection charter of 2002 prevented lay review boards from investigating bishops. Cardinals, too, must be protected from the intrusions of justice. But the assumptions of immunity for prelates collided with Pope Benedict’s concern for the secularization of Catholic Europe. His agenda for evangelizing Europe and renewing the church ran headlong into the 2010 news coverage of clergy abuse cases and European bishops who concealed perpetrators, just as in America.
The European bishops might heed a prescient American legal scholar. Patrick J. Schiltz published an article in America, the Jesuit magazine, in 2003. At the time he held a chair at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis. Citing his background in doing defense work for dioceses in abuse cases, Schiltz wrote: “I must confess that the church will not restore my trust until it holds negligent bishops accountable for the incalculable damage that they have inflicted on the church.” Schiltz was writing as litigation began to surge, just as the second wave of Boston plaintiffs received an $85 million settlement. A billion dollars more in church payouts from other states was yet to come. Schiltz recommended a reverse-class-action strategy.
The church should set up a national tribunal—a group of extremely well-respected people who are completely independent of the church—to arbitrate sexual claims against the church. A diocese that wanted to “opt in” to the system would invite victims who appear to be telling the truth about being sexually abused—which is about 98 percent of them—to use the tribunal. The diocese would essentially tell the victims that, if they forgo litigation and instead present their claims to the tribunal, the diocese will pay the victim whatever the tribunal decides is fair. Such a system would have major advantages for both victims and the church.
Victims would be certain of getting compensation. The diocese would agree not to raise the statute of limitations or any other defense. In other words, the question before the tribunal would not be “whether” but “how much?” Dioceses would recognize that regardless of what the law says, they have a moral obligation to compensate victims fairly. Moreover, victims could get quick compensation. In the court system, cases often drag on four or five years …
The most important benefit of this system is that it would let the church and the victim work together in a common cause—achieving a just and healing result—rather than pit them against each other through several years of litigation. Needless to say, there would be a lot of details to work out, but unless the church takes bold and creative steps such as these, it is in for a grim few years in the legal arena.3
Schiltz was right about the grim legal arena ahead. Eight years later, lawsuits continue. Bishops in Europe could embrace his plan, reduce losses, and gain respect in the eyes of their followers and the news media. It might yet work in parts of America. Schiltz, who is now a federal judge, declined to be interviewed.
Benedict XVI’s ascetic personality and history, as a cardinal, of punishing church intellectuals hardly suggest a reformer who would embrace Schiltz’s proposal; but as the annus horribilis of 2010 drew to a close, Benedict took a calculated risk with the Legion of Christ. He installed Cardinal Velasio De Paolis as papal delegate to the order—read: overseer. De Paolis