Title: The Catholic clergy has broken the bank. It’s time for the laity to take control.
The Catholic clergy broke their vows. They broke the law, they broke our hearts, and then they broke the bank.
On May 29, 2020, four months before the Diocese of Rockville Centre sought bankruptcy protection, a legal filing appeared on the diocesan website stating that more than $57 million had already been awarded to 320 victims of sexual abuse on Long Island. It was never “just a few priests” as we were led to believe when the sex abuse scandal erupted in 2001.
In 2003, a state Supreme Court special grand jury report concluded that an established pattern of abuse and cover-up existed in the Diocese of Rockville Centre. Grand jury reports in other locations concluded similarly, most notably in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Interestingly, the bishops who were transferred out of Boston and Allentown became our bishops here on Long Island.
Now, we are told that there are 636 lawsuits filed by the hierarchy’s victims under the New York Child Victims Act. The cost could be catastrophic.
The gospel mandate to provide for the least among us has been severely compromised by our clergy’s crimes. Many of the hungry will not be fed, nor will the growing number of homeless be sheltered. Schools will close and parish programs will cease. Children will miss out on the education that grounded their parents and grandparents in their faith. They gave generously to build our churches and schools, never guessing that those places would become crime scenes, then be named as assets that could be sold to pay for the priests’ abuse of their children and grandchildren.
Not a single priest or bishop will pay out of his pocket for his crimes. They won’t pay at all. Some were sent to Rome to escape the law, others reassigned to a distant diocese or promoted to pastor of another parish. Only one priest who committed crimes in this diocese went to jail.