NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Nola.com [New Orleans, LA]
May 5, 2025
By Leon Toups
This is a rebuttal to the thoughts expressed in the April 15 letter by Scott “Alex” Peyton of Opelousas.
Peyton is correct in saying that the Catholic Church runs on the financial support of its members, but beyond that, his logic is completely off base. Churchgoing Catholics do financially support the church, but we, as well as the present-day clergy, have demanded and received real reform from the unfortunate mistakes of the past clergy who have since died or been purged from our church.
The Catholic Church was forced to legally try to protect itself from the actions of the attorneys who represent the unfortunate individuals who have been abused by former clergy. The church has spent just shy of $50 million of savings and from divested assets on attorney fees fighting the greedy attorneys of the abused who made unreal promises to their clients — like they could each be awarded about $1 million. Although I question if any amount of financial award could ever adequately compensate the abused individuals, the legal cost to the Catholic Church to date would have amounted to about $100,000 per abused individual.
Well over 80 years ago, when I would complain about something that seemed to injure me or be unfair, my mother would repeat to me that in this life, oftentimes the good have to suffer for the bad. Unfortunately, that couldn’t be more true than in the case of these sexually abused individuals. On the other hand, our church recently celebrated Holy Week, which of course, included Good Friday. As I write this letter, I wonder where the Catholic Church, we churchgoers or even these abused individuals would be if Our Lord Jesus Christ had filed a lawsuit against the Jews and Romans to prevent his passion and horrible death on the cross.
LEON TOUPS
Metairie