News of the Planned Sale of Their Convent to Help Pay a Clergy Sex Abuse Settlement Has Brought Promises of Assistance and Media Attention
By Rebecca Trounson
Los Angeles Times
September 11, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-nuns11sep11,1,1051214.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california
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| Sister Margarita Antonia Gonzalez reacts to a discussion of a plan by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to close the Sisters of Bethany's convent in Santa Barbara and sell it to help pay for its $660-million settlement of priest sexual abuse cases. Gonzalez lives and works at the convent with two other nuns. Photo by Spencer Weiner |
Three nuns who recently learned that their Santa Barbara convent would be sold to help cover the costs of Los Angeles' multimillion-dollar priest sexual abuse settlement say they have been overwhelmed with offers of help -- and media attention.
"The support has been just unbelievable," said Sister Angela Escalera, the local superior of the Sisters of Bethany house. "It's come from all parts of Santa Barbara and outside too. And from all denominations. It's just astounding."
She and two other nuns at the small, eastside convent received word in late August that the dwelling, which is owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, would be sold to help pay for the church's $660-million priest sex abuse settlement. At least $250 million of that amount will be paid directly by the archdiocese.
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| Alfredo Rodriguez thanks Sister Angela Escalera for helping with the paperwork to allow his wife in Mexico to join him in the U.S. Escalera and the two other nuns at the Sisters of Bethany convent help poor, mostly immigrant residents is east Santa Barbara. Photo by Spencer Weiner |
Escalera, 69, a retired notary public and social worker, has lived at the convent since 1964. She is still an active community volunteer, working mainly with the area's many poor and undocumented residents.
Another of the nuns, Sister Consuelo Cardenas, 55, has lived in the building about 25 years and works as a religious education coordinator at a nearby parish.
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| Gonzalez, left, helps Escalera, 69, up a flight of stairs at the convent, which was built by Sisters of Bethany in 1952. The archdiocese gave the nuns four months to move out before the building is sold. Photo by Spencer Weiner |
The third, Sister Margarita Antonia Gonzalez, 49, is a relative newcomer to the community, having lived there about four years.
They have until Dec. 31 to move out, according to a letter sent by the archdiocese.
Since news of the likely sale broke last week, the phone at the convent has been "ringing and ringing and ringing," Escalera said Monday.
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| Sister Consuelo Cardenas, left, and Gonzalez attend evening Mass in the chapel at the Sisters of Bethany convent. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has said it will sell up to 50 non-parish properties to help pay the priest sexual abuse settlement. Photo by Spencer Weiner |
Among other appearances in the past week, the nuns have twice been interviewed by Spanish-language television network Telemundo and on Friday by the hosts of the "John & Ken Show" on talk radio's KFI-AM (640).
"We feel real bad for her, getting tossed out of her home like that," John Kobylt, the show's co-host, said Monday of Escalera. He noted dryly that nuns were not the often rambunctious talk show's typical guests.
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| Gonzalez, left, and Escalera read the letter from the archdiocese telling them they were being evicted. "We're just so hurt by this," said Escalera, who has lived in the convent since 1964. Photo by Spencer Weiner |
In fact, Kobylt said, chuckling, "she may be one of the very few we've ever had on. . . . It's lunar-eclipse kind of rare."
Escalera said a longtime friend in Los Angeles called Friday to tell her that he had been so startled to hear her on the radio program that he nearly drove off the road. "But I told him [John and Ken] were just fine," the nun said. "They wanted to help."
Many others seem to want to as well.
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| Gonzalez gets ready to prepare dinner for herself and the two other nuns at the Sisters of Bethany's convent. Photo by Spencer Weiner |
Several community members, headed by Anthony Dal Bello, a Santa Barbara businessman who has known the local Sisters of Bethany since childhood, are forming a committee to try to help them and hope to set up a fund for donations.
"We'd like to find some way for them to stay where they are," said Dal Bello, who recalls assisting with Mass at the convent as a boy and later serving as president of the local Catholic social service agency. "If the archdiocese has to sell it, we'll have to try to find the finances to buy it. And otherwise, we'll have to come up with something else."
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| Escalera, 69, who is retired and partly disabled, had hoped to live out her days in the convent in east Santa Barbara -- until the archdiocese decided to sell it. Photo by Spencer Weiner |
At the convent Monday, a television report that the building had already been sold set off a flurry of concern from the nuns and their supporters.
But Tod M. Tamberg, spokesman for the archdiocese, said later that the report was false.
The Santa Barbara County assessor's office lists the value of the property at about $98,000, although it is unclear what it might bring in a sale.
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| The Sisters of Bethany convent is next to Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Santa Barbara. Photo bySpencer Weiner |
Even the relatively small, older homes nearby sell for at least $700,000, according to local real estate websites.
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| Escalera says the most hurtful part of the proposed sale of her convent is that the proceeds will be used to pay for the misdeeds of pedophile priests. Photo by Spencer Weiner |
Tamberg also said that as many as 50 non-parish properties, including the archdiocese's administrative headquarters, would be sold to cover the legal bill and said the choice of which to sell had been difficult for all concerned.
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