PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Weekly
The church is far from candid about its supposed price tag for responding to its sex-abuse charges.
By Tara Murtha
With the trial against ex-priest Father Charles Engelhardt and former schoolteacher Bernard Shero beginning yesterday, the Philadelphia Archdiocese is making headlines yet again. The archdiocese has been in the news constantly lately, between the landmark conviction of Msgr. William J. Lynn; the battle over statute of limitations on child-sex abuse; the closing of many Catholic schools; and all the brouhaha surrounding the incipient sale of a few lavish real-estate holdings—including Villa St. Joseph, a 19-room, 9,800-square-foot house on the Jersey shore featuring two elevators and assessed at $6.2 million.
And in article after article, the figure $11.6 million pops up.
The $11.6 million—you may have seen it in the news as $11 million, $10.6 million or $10 million—is, reporters inform us, the price the church has paid so far responding to “the current clergy sex-abuse scandal” or, to use ever-so-slightly clearer language, “the latest grand jury investigation into clergy sex-abuse and the criminal prosecution of Msgr. William J. Lynn.”
The figure is never attributed. It just hangs there, as if it is confirmed fact. Trouble is, it’s not. So where’s it from?
This past June, amid international headlines about the case against Lynn, the Archdiocese published a document titled the “Financial Report of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.”
The introduction to the report was written by Archbishop Charles Chaput: “The cost of responding to the grand jury report, the investigations related to priests on administrative leave, the subsequent criminal and civil legal proceedings and the investigation into the embezzlement has been heavy.” Chaput states that “roughly $1.6 million” of these “extraordinary costs” occurred fiscal 2011, with the remaining $10 million or so accruing in the time period ending March 31, 2012.
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