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	Valley Parish Donates $1.5 Million to Pay Archdiocese Sex Abuse Victims By Tony Castro LA Daily News April 29, 2008 http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_9100193 St. Bernardine of Siena Parish in Woodland Hills has donated nearly $1.5 million of its savings to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles to help fund last year's multimillion-dollar settlement of clergy sex abuse cases. The donation is unprecedented in the archdiocese, which has called on 101 churches with identified savings of at least $1 million each to help offset the more than $660 million payout to victims of clergy sexual abuse, according to archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamberg. "While it may not sit well with everyone in the parish, it is an extraordinary gesture of community and family on the part of St. Bernardine Parish," said Tamberg, who called the gift "emotionally moving." Cardinal Roger Mahony was out of town Tuesday and not available for comment on the donation. The donation comes in an archdiocese that in recent months has put together a financial-recovery plan including a 2percent increase in the assessment on all parishes. The recovery plan has been explained to parishioners in a series of meetings throughout the archdiocese, which seeks to fund settlements totaling $720 million, including the $660 million agreed to last summer in 508 cases. That was combined with a $60 million payout for 45 more cases settled in December 2006. But the archdiocese's administrative office currently has an annual budget deficit of almost $12 million, complicating its financial picture, officials said. St. Bernardine, which had a savings account of almost $1.5 million, kept only $1,000 in that account after its donation to the archdiocese, said the Rev. Robert J. McNamara, the church's pastor. McNamara declined to comment Tuesday, but wrote to parishioners about his decision in last Sunday's church bulletin. "I prayed a lot, had some sleepless nights," McNamara wrote. "I had to come to a decision." McNamara, who has been pastor at the church for more than six years, said he was inspired by his parishioners' own sacrifices and generosity in raising some $170,000 in recent years in response to Hurricane Katrina and tsunami disasters and famine in Africa. "You have given like a people who wanted to make a difference, and a difference you did make," McNamara said. "That continued generosity inspired my decision then to help by giving (to the archdiocese) all our savings minus $1,000." McNamara indicated that his decision came after a series of meetings with parishioners and clergy in which there had been some opposition to giving any money at all to the archdiocese for sex-abuse case settlements. "It also included some heated exchanges," he wrote. "There was some venting - anger, disappointment, frustration, concern for victims, etc., all coming from the shame we felt as Catholics and empathy for the victims." McNamara wrote that after more meetings and discussions there was "unanimity in that we must do something; however, it had come down to a question of how much." Almost $1 million of the parish's savings had come in a bequest from a single parishioner two years ago, he wrote. A sampling of several parishioners Tuesday - who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity - found general support for McNamara's decision. The parish and its school also have endowments of almost $500,000 each, and the parish has an emergency maintenance fund of some $540,000, McNamara wrote. Although the archdiocese had announced last year that it would pay $250 million toward the settlement - with the balance coming from insurance carriers and religious orders whose members have been accused in the abuse cases - officials have since told parishes that the archdiocesan share of the actual costs was greater than expected. The archdiocese itself is paying $292 million of the settlements, with a bank loan of $175 million that it intends to repay in part through the sale of up to 51 archdiocesan properties valued at $107 million, according to its annual financial statement. It also is liquidating investments worth $117 million. Tamberg said the archdiocese hopes to use money given or loaned by the 101 churches with disposable savings of at least $1 million each to help repay the loans faster, saving on the interest paid. Representatives of other parishes in the San Fernando Valley - among them St. Mel in Woodland Hills and Santa Rosa in the city of San Fernando - said Tuesday that they had been asked by the archdiocese not to talk with the news media about any parish assessments, donations, loans or issues related to the archdiocese's financial situation. The archdiocese also has put up six high schools as collateral on a $50 million loan financing part of the settlement, Tamberg has said in the past. Properties being sold include Sisters of Bethany convent in Santa Barbara, displacing nuns who had lived there since 1964. The archdiocese also has sold its 12-story administrative headquarters building on Wilshire Boulevard for $31million. Staffers who oversee the archdiocese's cemeteries moved to office space on the grounds of a church-owned cemetery. Other staff offices have been consolidated in four of the building's floors that the archdiocese leases from the new owner. Last October, the archdiocese announced it would sell Daniel Murphy High School in the Park La Brea area of Los Angeles, citing the school's declining enrollment and the archdiocese's "severe financial challenges." Parents at the school who opposed the sale said the 2.7-acre site would go for $25 million to $40 million. According to church financial documents, insurance companies are paying $236 million of the settlement cost. Religious orders and other defendants are paying $118 million, leaving a gap of $74 million. The archdiocese has guaranteed to pay the balance, which could be as much as $50 million. A religious order not involved in the settlement last summer has agreed to pay up to $25 million of the gap. To help offset the administrative budget deficit, the archdiocese has imposed cost reductions and more cuts in a staff already trimmed from 440 to 233 in the past five years, an official of the Archdiocesan Financial Council said at one of the archdiocese meetings at St. Dennis in Diamond Bar. Meanwhile, McNamara said in his bulletin to parishioners that he is praying for continued support. "Aware that some of you would have done things differently, I beg your understanding," he wrote. "I pray I have made the right decision, and with God's help, I will continue to encourage you to live by faith, walk in hope and act in charity."
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