ROME (CNS): If a US diocese gets into financial trouble because of legal settlements over clerical sexual abuse, it will have to turn to other dioceses for help, not to the Vatican, said a top Church official.
“It’s not the practice of the Holy See to bail out dioceses,” said US Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka, who is president of the commission that governs Vatican City State.
“In the past, when dioceses have suffered financial problems – not related to sex abuse lawsuits – other dioceses have helped them with no interest loans. It’s their responsibility,” he told Business Week Online.
Cardinal Szoka, who headed the Vatican’s budget planning office from 1990-97, said it would be contrary to the Church’s “structure” for the Vatican to assist dioceses financially.
“We can’t convey the idea that we will pay every time a diocese is in financial trouble,” he added. “We can’t.”
Business Week magazine devoted its April 15 cover story to the economic implications of recent reports of clerical sex abuse in the United States. The magazine cited estimates by plaintiffs’ lawyers that US dioceses have spent as much as US$1 billion in sex abuse settlements since 1985.
