Wis. Clergy Abuse Victims Lobby Vatican on Claims

Wall Street Journal
November 26, 2013

http://online.wsj.com/article/AP171ae2db53f948ab96628638d01cb71a.html

[letter to the Vatican]

Clergy sexual abuse victims and priests in Wisconsin said Tuesday that they've asked Roman Catholic officials at the Vatican to move more than $50 million from a cemetery trust fund and make it available to settle bankruptcy claims against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

The letter to the Congregation for the Clergy, the church office that oversees abuse cases, essentially asks it to undo an order that authorized New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan to create the trust fund in 2007, when he was archbishop in Milwaukee.

The cemetery fund had been seen as one of the archdiocese's few significant assets when it filed for bankruptcy in 2011, but a federal judge declared the money off-limits last summer, saying the trust was protected by the First Amendment's freedom of religion. That decision, coupled with the archdiocese's recent announcement of a settlement with one of its major insurers, has raised questions about how much money is available to pay the hundreds of sexual abuse victims who have filed claims in bankruptcy court.

The letter sent Friday has no bearing on U.S. court proceedings but instead is an appeal to the church to do justice according to its own teachings and legal code, said Rev. James Connell, a former vice chancellor of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and co-founder of the Survivors and Clergy Leadership Alliance. He acknowledged the appeal was unusual and a Vatican response would be "historic."

But, he said, "We have to try."

The archdiocese created the cemetery trust fund in 2007 after agreeing the year before to a $16 million settlement with nine people abused by Wisconsin priests while the priests were living in California. In a letter to the Vatican, Dolan said the trust would provide "an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability."

Dolan's prediction appeared accurate in July, when U.S. District Judge Rudolph T. Randa determined the money could be used only to care for and operate Catholic cemeteries. The creditors committee, which represents sexual abuse victims as well as others with bankruptcy claims against the archdiocese, appealed that decision after learning that Randa's parents were buried in one of those cemeteries.

The appeal is pending before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Tim Nixon, a lawyer for the cemetery trust fund, said that while he respects victims' right to appeal to the Vatican, he believes the matter should be settled in court.

A Vatican spokesman in the U.S. did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff for current Archbishop Jerome Listecki, said the trust merely formalized the archdiocese's longstanding practice of setting aside income from the sale of graves to maintain the cemetery.

Meanwhile, the archdiocese announced earlier this month that it had reached a deal with Lloyd's, of London, to buy back insurance policies issued in the 1960s and 1970s, when much of the abuse occurred. The deal, which needs judicial approval, relieves Lloyd's of liability in return for an undisclosed sum; the archdiocese has said details will be included in its yet-to-be-filed bankruptcy reorganization plan. Negotiations with other insurers continue.

Those events have raised questions about how the archdiocese might settle with sexual abuse victims. Individual payments comparable to those in other U.S. church bankruptcy cases would require the archdiocese to come up with at least $158 million, according to the Survivors and Clergy Leadership Alliance. Peter Isely, another co-founder, said victims in Milwaukee shouldn't expect less, and the reorganization plan will be a sign of the archdiocese's priorities.

"Money doesn't lie," Isely said. "Money says this is what I care about."