BishopAccountability.org
	Diocese Reduces Debt in Abuse Claims $35 Million of a $50 Million Loan Is Repaid without Selling Marywood Center in Orange By Chris Knap The Orange County Register [California] September 20, 2005 The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange liquidated investments totaling $35 million to retire most of the debt it incurred in settling with 90 victims of sexual abuse, the church said Monday. After the $100 million total settlement was made public last December, Catholics fretted that the church would have to sell its treasured Marywood pastoral center. That has not proved necessary. The initial payment to the victims was funded half by the diocese's insurance companies and half by a short-term loan from Bank of America. On Aug. 15 the diocese paid back $35 million of that $50 million loan. Rob Fitzgerald, a lay adviser to the bishop's task force on debt reduction, said the diocese hopes to pay an additional $5 million to $10 million on the loan in February and to retire the balance by June 2006. Fitzgerald said the repayment leaves $35 million in diocesan investments intact. The plan is to retire the remainder of the debt with surpluses from the operations of Catholic cemeteries and the consolidated diocesan bank account. "There has been no parish assessment, and there won't be one," said Fitzgerald, who is the retired chief financial officer of Pimco, the Newport Beach bond fund. Fitzgerald said the committee is still looking at the value of the Marywood complex in Orange - estimated at $15 million to $30 million - and may eventually sell it if that makes financial sense. The bishop's task force shared its plans with about 250 members of parish finance councils Aug. 29. Parishioners learned of the repayment in Sunday church bulletins. Joelle Casteix, southwest regional director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Orange has set an example for other dioceses. She noted that a new lawsuit was filed earlier this year over alleged abuse at Mater Dei High School. "While I congratulate them on retiring their debt, it is important to note that there are still new cases coming forward. The day we find out that there are no more sex-abuse cases will be a better day," Casteix said. Bishop of Orange Tod D. Brown said he was "profoundly grateful" for the work of the task force. "Our challenge was to accommodate these payments in a manner that would not diminish our ability to continue our religious mission and pastoral service ministries nor stifle needed parish growth (and) the development of other charitable, academic and social programs," Brown said in a statement. "We eventually also need to consider the construction of a new Cathedral."
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.