I have been purposefully neglecting this story, but now that it’s been reported in the local media and now that it’s been reported by EWTN, I guess I can put my two cents in. Oh, wait, no more pennies. Okay, then, here’s my two nickles. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, the diocese that oversees my local parish, has agreed to pay out $140 million to supposed victims of clergy sexual abusers.
Most of that money will come from the diocese’s various insurance carriers, but the sad reality is that local parishes will also pay the price, literally and figuratively. Today in Mass, our priest read a statement from Bishop Mark O’Connell, our new bishop, and he announced a meeting that will take place after Easter in which the financial impact on my parish will be discussed.
“As the Bishop of Albany, I want to say a clear and unnuanced statement of guilt on the part of the diocese in its handling of our predator priests and others within the diocese,” O’Connell said. He then went on to apologize, even though he has nothing to apologize for.
He shouldn’t have made a public statement like that. The diocese has nothing to be guilty about. The only guilty people, in my opinion, are the alleged victims, most of whom waited for decades and only came forward when the law allowed for victims to come forward decades after the supposed fact.
If these so-called victims were truly abused, they would have come forward years ago, right? But they only came forward, in my opinion, when they saw dollar signs. That’s not a victim, folks. That’s a greedy opportunist, at least as far as I can see.
I don’t feel sorry for the people who claim that they were sexually abused. I don’t. The fact that they waited so long says to me that, and this might be a controversial opinion, they were never truly victims to begin with. If something truly did happen to them and they didn’t immediately say something, one might be able to make the argument that they wanted it. When the chance for a payday presented itself, they morphed into victims.
A lot of innocent people are going to pay. The greedy so-called victims who sued are hypocrites. Every week in Mass, we talk about forgiveness. Where’s the forgiveness here? Oh, right, greed overpowered that silly little concept. Now, our parish will have to literally pay something into the pot, even though none of the purported abuse came from our parish.
Though the laypeople won’t know what the true impact upon our parish will be for a few weeks, it’s going to be bad. We’re a mid-sized parish, but we don’t have money to hand out.
It’s spelled out quite clearly in our weekly bulletin for all to see, so I am not disclosing privileged information: we need a certain amount of offerings every week in order to fully sustain our parish, and every week I and everyone else can see that we are not pulling in those numbers.
How, then, are we to pay out for something that we shouldn’t have to pay?
It’s also no secret that there are plans to close or merge parishes. How many and which parishes will be affected is not known yet, at least not to the average Catholic and the public at large. There are troubling rumors that my parish might be one of those parishes to close. Either that, or we might absorb a smaller parish. Either way, the news isn’t looking good.
Closing our parish would be dumb to say the least. Our lot hosts the parish itself and the school next door. If the parish were to close, then all that real estate would be wasted. Just like you’ll never shut down Bank of America or Chase Bank, two of the nation’s biggest banks, you’ll never close a parish such as mine. We’re too big to fail. Attendance is great and even though our members aren’t exactly kicking in their fair share, closing us would cause more harm than goo.
Some parishes will not be as lucky, especially the smaller ones that are pulling in less numbers than the one that I attend. Yes, there will definitely be closures now that the settlement is almost certainly final.
Someone has to pay, after all, even though no one should be paying a dime to people who came forward only when money was to be had. Where were they after the supposed abuse happened? Nowhere, but then dollar signs showed up and they changed their tune.
Even if these people were truly abused, and it’s my opinion that most, if not all, of them are either lying or overstating, they did nothing to stop it and sat on it for decades. That’s not a victim, as I’ve already stated. No, the only victims here will be the parishioners who will have to suffer because some greedy people decided to ignore that whole forgiveness thing.
Maybe there’s a true victim here or there in this settlement. There are in fact some bad priests who did do some bad things, but a true victim would have stepped forward immediately and in the interests of justice, not padding one’s bank account. That’s why I don’t feel sorry for any of them.
Time will tell when it comes to which parishes will close or merge. What I can tell you is that it’s almost certain that we will absorb a parish or two as opposed to being one of the closures. Mass times will have to be added and it will cause a headache for us, and it will be sad for those who will lose their parishes. But the “victims” don’t care about that. Their selfishness and arrogance knows no bounds. I hope they take their precious money and choke on it.