Diocese of Davenport Declares Moral Bankruptcy

I respectfully but strongly disagree with jclifford’s recent article downplaying Republican Party responsibility for the sexual predation of underage congressional pages. Jclifford feels it is unlikely that the Republican Party would know that pages were being preyed upon and cover it up rather than address the issue. I think it is entirely plausible, because we’ve seen a number of other large and powerful organizations do the same thing. Like the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Diocese of Davenport, Iowa announced this morning that it will file bankruptcy to protect its assets — including pretty buildings, nice statues, flowing robes, pots of incense, musical equipment and so on — from being used to pay the Diocese’s legal debts to victims of sexual abuse by the diocese’s priests. And let’s be clear about this: the problem with the Davenport Diocese is not simply that a number of priests in Iowa sexually assaulted little kids — it’s that the church leadership apparently knew about the sexual assaults and hushed it all up so that the Catholic Church could keep its false squeaky clean image and, as Diocese lawyer Rand Wonio puts it, “go forward with its true mission.”

KCCI news in Des Moines reports:

Bishop William Franklin said he regrets the decision, but the financial pressure of settling 25 outstanding sexual abuse claims against its priests is too great a burden.

The Quad City Times adds:

Franklin said, “Because the settlement demands are greater than the available assets of the diocese, we cannot continue on our present path.”

Franklin said he made the decision after consulting with the Diocese of Davenport Corporate Board and Finance Council, the College of Consultors, diocesan directors and diocese attorneys….

Montgomery echoed Franklin’s statement that the diocese filed bankruptcy to be fair to all current and future claimants.

“We don’t have the money to pay the current judgments,” Montgomery said. “In order to be as fair as we can to all the victims, if they make a filing to the bankruptcy court, they will be treated more fairly.”

They don’t have the money? The assets just aren’t there?

BALONEY.

The Catholic Church gets its money from its members every Sunday. It’s called a collection plate. As the National Council of Catholic Bishop succinctly puts it, “the laity are the Church in the heart of the world.” The laity are the Catholic Church. The laity funds the Catholic Church.

Because it collectively establishes and maintains the Catholic Church, the laity is responsible for the abuses of power by the Catholic Church.

What have members of the Catholic Church in Iowa been willing to pay for all these years?

Davenport Catholics have for years been willing to pay for statues.
Davenport Catholics have for years been willing to pay for golden robes.
Davenport Catholics have for years been willing to pay for nice-smelling incense.
Davenport Catholics have for years been willing to pay for pretty pretty stained glass.
Davenport Catholics have for years been willing to pay for organs and choir directors.
Davenport Catholics have for years been willing to pay for an extensive bureaucracy.
Davenport Catholics have for years been willing to pay for opulent buildings.
Davenport Catholics have for years bathed in the benefits and prettiness of these things.

But when kids have been victims of sexual assault and have been secondarily victimized by a Catholic Church bureaucracy that covered for sexual predators and repeatedly set them free to do their deeds again, Davenport Catholics say they just don’t have the wherewithal. They need to use their money buy nice-smelling incense and golden robes instead. Priorities, you know.

The church is a large and powerful institution with a great deal of built-up, ornate, showy wealth, and besides that wealth has access to huge untapped financial resources in the pocketbooks of the laity that sustains it. The church and the laity have been presented with an opportunity: will they exercise moral leadership and do what they can to compensate those the church has victimized? Or will they pursue fiscal self-interest and ignore their moral responsibilities?

Remember that choice the next time the Catholic Church tries to dictate its “moral values” to you.