CNA Staff, Oct 16, 2020 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- The Diocese of Richmond is set to pay a total of $6.3 million in settlements to more than 50 victims of clerical abuse, the bishop announced this week.
The announcement comes after the diocese celebrated its bicentennial July 11.
“With the celebration of a jubilee year comes another opportunity to work for justice — for acknowledgement of wrongs, reconciliation with those we have wronged, and attempts to repair the hurt we have caused,” Bishop Barry Knestout said in an Oct. 15 letter.
“Those three facets — confession, reconciliation and repair — are at the foundation of the Catholic Church’s sacrament of reconciliation which was the model for our entering into the Independent Reconciliation Program.”
The diocese during February 2020 started an Independent Reconciliation Program to offer help to alleged minor sexual abuse victims through an independent arbiter. On Oct. 15, the diocese released a report detailing the program’s conclusions.
Out of 68 claims initiated, 60 were submitted to the claims administrator. Of those alleged victims, 51 were given offers of payment, all of whom accepted.
According to the report, the settlements will be funded through the diocese’s self-insurance program, a loan, and “contributions from other religious orders, where appropriate.”
The settlements will not come from parish or school assets, the annual diocesan appeal, donor restricted contributions, or restricted endowments, the report states.
“The completion of this program is by no means the end of our efforts to provide for our diocese’s victim survivors. Our outreach is ongoing. We must, and we will, continue to meet victim survivors with support and compassion motivated by our shared love of Jesus Christ,” Knestout concluded, asking for continued prayers for victims of abuse.
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CNA Staff, Mar 15, 2021 / 05:37 pm (CNA).- The Easter Vigil, which takes place Holy Saturday night, “is the greatest and most noble of all solemnities and it is to be unique in every single Church,” the rubrics of the Missale Romanum proclaim.The … […]
Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, speaks with EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo on “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” on March 2, 2023. / EWTN screenshot
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 3, 2023 / 15:40 pm (CNA).
In the wake of new restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass, two American bishops spoke with EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo Thursday about how their dioceses have responded.
Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, and Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Diocese of Kansas City, Kansas, both defended the Traditional Latin Mass communities within their dioceses during their interviews on “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” March 2.
Pope Francis issued a motu proprio titled Traditionis custodes on July 16, 2021, which put heavy restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass. The order directed bishops to designate locations for the Traditional Latin Mass but stated none of the locations should be within parish churches. Because a lot of dioceses already had thriving Latin Mass communities within parishes, some bishops offered dispensations, which allowed those Masses to continue as before.
Cardinal Arthur Roche, the prefect for the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, issued a rescript on Feb. 21, which is a formal clarification from the Vatican. It stated that such dispensations are reserved to the Holy See and ordered bishops who had issued those dispensations to “inform the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which will evaluate the individual cases.”
Paprocki said during the interview that he questions “the wisdom” of the rescript and suggested that it “seems to contradict what Pope Francis himself said when he issued the motu proprio,” which Paprocki interpreted to say that bishops had discretion to decide how to implement the restrictions “on a case by case basis” within their dioceses.
In addition, Paprocki questioned the legal basis for not allowing the dispensations already granted by bishops to remain in effect.
“I would argue Canon 9 says that laws in the Church are not retroactive, so any dispensations that have already been given remain in effect,” Paprocki said. “But I would also recognize the validity of this new rescript and the restriction that is being placed upon diocesan bishops.”
Paprocki added that these judgments are best made by the bishop based on the principle of subsidiarity, which maintains that “decisions should be made at a local level” unless there’s an overriding reason.
“I’ve yet to see what that reason would be” in the case of these dispensations, Paprocki said.
Instead, he said, “you’ve got a prefect in Rome basically making decisions about what’s happening in the local diocese and the local parishes.”
When the motu proprio was originally issued, the Diocese of Springfield had two parish churches that offered the Latin Mass. Paprocki noted that one of the parishes has a priest from the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), which was given a dispensation from the Vatican. The bishop designated the other church as a non-parish church.
“My predecessor merged two parishes together, but he kept the two churches open,” Paprocki told Arroyo. “And so when the Holy Father, in his motu proprio Traditionis custodes, said that you can’t have the Traditional Latin Mass at a parochial church, I simply designated one of those churches as non-parochial. And so therefore, we’re in compliance with that decree.”
Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City speaks to EWTN Pro-Life Weekly on July 21, 2022. Screenshot from EWTN Pro-Life Weekly
Archbishop Naumann noted that the Diocese of Kansas City has not been greatly affected by the Vatican’s orders because there are two Traditional Latin Mass communities operated by FSSP, which has a dispensation from the Vatican.
“I would say the people in those communities, I find them to be very sincere,” Naumann said. “And they love the Lord, they love the Church, they love the Eucharist. I think what the pope was trying initially to correct is, there was an attitude, I think, amongst some, that there was a superiority [of] the Tridentine Mass, to the Novus Ordo, and I think that was an error. But I don’t think that’s how most people in those communities see things. And I think they’re confused by the limitations that are being put upon even bishops in making pastoral judgments.”
You can watch Arroyo’s full interview with Bishop Paprocki and Archbishop Naumann here.
Archbishop Jose Gomez at the fall 2019 USCCB meeting / Kate Veik/CNA
Washington D.C., Jun 21, 2021 / 18:15 pm (CNA).
The U.S. bishops are seeking to deepen “awareness” of the Eucharist with their new teaching document, the president of the U.S. … […]
6 Comments
According to the report, the settlements will be funded through the diocese’s self-insurance program, a loan, and “contributions from other religious orders, where appropriate.”
“The settlements will not come from parish or school assets, the annual diocesan appeal, donor restricted contributions, or restricted endowments, the report states.”
With all the “confession, reconciliation, and repair” going on in the Diocese of Richmond, it seems that transparency and simple honesty did not make the list. The Diocese’s “self-insurance program” is a fancy way of saying it is funded by, wait for it, the unrestricted contributions of parishioners. The “loan” will be paid, principal and interest by, wait for it, yes, that’s right, the unrestricted contributions of parishioners. Why will the payments not come from “parish or school assets, the annual diocesan appeal, donor restricted contributions, or restricted endowments”? Because these assets don’t belong to the Diocese but to the separate civil and/or canonical legal entities involved.
The Diocese’s verbal legerdemain leaves me very skeptical that it is going to “meet victim survivors with support and compassion”. If that were the case, there never would have been 50+ rape or sexual abuse victims to begin with. I have had significant experience, professional and personal, with Catholic dioceses throughout the U.S. for over 35 years on sexual abuse matters. The experience has been a bitter one, with “support and compassion” present primarily in public relations releases like the one here that are intended to manipulate the credulity and trust of the victims and anesthetize the laity into believing the problem has been solved. It hasn’t. The Catholic Church in this country is massively corrupt and has been for decades and even today is heavily infiltrated by homosexuals at all levels up to and including the highest.
The Gilded Age New York millionaire Thomas Fortune Ryan who built this cathedral single-handedly knew what was most important. Sadly, the interior of this magnificent building has been vandalized by Vatican II liturgical Nazi’s and bears little resemblance to its original conception and design, a paradigm of the Catholic Church in Richmond and this country, if not the world.
In the end, money that could have been spent on worthwhile endeavors gets spent on attempting to fix injustices that should never have happened, and in many cases, most likely did not happen. The way these things are often described, it almost sounds as though they printed the money. The bottom line is that it has to come from somewhere, and it doesn’t matter if it comes from one’s front pocket, back pocket, left pocket, or right pocket.
Yes, I agree with you that the squandering of $4 billion by U.S. Catholic bishops, let alone the ravaged lives of innumerable Catholics, victims and loved ones, is a sordid tragedy of horrendous proportions, regardless of who pays for it. The even uglier reality is that the Satanic evil that underlies it has not diminished; in fact, it has metastasized. For over 35 years I have said that stories like this will continue as long as the priesthood continues to be a safe harbor for homosexuals and other psycho-sexual deviates. Make no mistake, they make up the predominant share of priests in today’s ape-Church.
According to the report, the settlements will be funded through the diocese’s self-insurance program, a loan, and “contributions from other religious orders, where appropriate.”
“The settlements will not come from parish or school assets, the annual diocesan appeal, donor restricted contributions, or restricted endowments, the report states.”
With all the “confession, reconciliation, and repair” going on in the Diocese of Richmond, it seems that transparency and simple honesty did not make the list. The Diocese’s “self-insurance program” is a fancy way of saying it is funded by, wait for it, the unrestricted contributions of parishioners. The “loan” will be paid, principal and interest by, wait for it, yes, that’s right, the unrestricted contributions of parishioners. Why will the payments not come from “parish or school assets, the annual diocesan appeal, donor restricted contributions, or restricted endowments”? Because these assets don’t belong to the Diocese but to the separate civil and/or canonical legal entities involved.
The Diocese’s verbal legerdemain leaves me very skeptical that it is going to “meet victim survivors with support and compassion”. If that were the case, there never would have been 50+ rape or sexual abuse victims to begin with. I have had significant experience, professional and personal, with Catholic dioceses throughout the U.S. for over 35 years on sexual abuse matters. The experience has been a bitter one, with “support and compassion” present primarily in public relations releases like the one here that are intended to manipulate the credulity and trust of the victims and anesthetize the laity into believing the problem has been solved. It hasn’t. The Catholic Church in this country is massively corrupt and has been for decades and even today is heavily infiltrated by homosexuals at all levels up to and including the highest.
Look closely at the inscription on the architrave shown in this photograph:
https://travel.sygic.com/en/poi/cathedral-of-the-sacred-heart-poi:15150519
The Gilded Age New York millionaire Thomas Fortune Ryan who built this cathedral single-handedly knew what was most important. Sadly, the interior of this magnificent building has been vandalized by Vatican II liturgical Nazi’s and bears little resemblance to its original conception and design, a paradigm of the Catholic Church in Richmond and this country, if not the world.
Charles Flynn,
Exactly. Thank you for sharing that link.
In the end, money that could have been spent on worthwhile endeavors gets spent on attempting to fix injustices that should never have happened, and in many cases, most likely did not happen. The way these things are often described, it almost sounds as though they printed the money. The bottom line is that it has to come from somewhere, and it doesn’t matter if it comes from one’s front pocket, back pocket, left pocket, or right pocket.
Yes, I agree with you that the squandering of $4 billion by U.S. Catholic bishops, let alone the ravaged lives of innumerable Catholics, victims and loved ones, is a sordid tragedy of horrendous proportions, regardless of who pays for it. The even uglier reality is that the Satanic evil that underlies it has not diminished; in fact, it has metastasized. For over 35 years I have said that stories like this will continue as long as the priesthood continues to be a safe harbor for homosexuals and other psycho-sexual deviates. Make no mistake, they make up the predominant share of priests in today’s ape-Church.