MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Editorial
In an interview Monday on the Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese’s bankruptcy reorganization plan, Archbishop Jerome Listecki said he wanted sexual abuse victims to know that “we are doing our best” even though it might not seem that way to some victims and that the archdiocese is “not going to walk away from the victim survivors.”
He also said that he wants parishioners to know that “we basically have confronted evil, and we haven’t walked away from it” in dealing with the sexual abuse scandal.
There are those who would take issue with those statements. Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests and the Survivors and Clergy Leadership Alliance blasted the plan, announced last week, as an “obscene gesture” by the archdiocese, insulting to those who were victimized by both clergy and a church hierarchy that sometimes turned a blind eye to such abuse.
He was not alone, though we think that criticism is overly harsh. That said, we wish the church could do more, both in terms of the monetary settlements, including a lifetime fund for therapy for victims (about $500,000), and in the number of claimants allowed. If approved by the bankruptcy court, the plan would provide the smallest settlement of any of the Catholic Church bankruptcies filed since 2004. The plan limits the number of claimants to about 125 abuse victims out of the 575 who have made claims against the archdiocese.
In our view, it’s questionable that such a limited plan provides the measure of justice needed for the abuse of children. The court needs to take a close look at the plan and make sure there is nothing else the diocese can do to provide more help and more justice for victims. Perhaps there should be a campaign for victims as there have been for other church causes, or perhaps there are other sources of money for the settlement.
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