As the cost of clergy sex abuse surpasses $1.5 billion, some U.S. Roman Catholic leaders are taking an aggressive public stand against attorneys who represent victims.
The new development in the long-running clergy-abuse crisis was partly triggered by proposals in several statehouses this year that would create a brief period when molestation claims could be filed – even if the time limits for lawsuits had passed.
Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput portrayed the legislation introduced in Colorado as part of a conspiracy between advocacy groups and attorneys to enrich lawyers at the church’s expense.
“Victims’ groups may act as stimulants to sympathetic news media and state lawmakers,” Chaput wrote in the May edition of the journal First Things. “Plaintiffs’ attorneys may then offer help in drafting new legislation from which they themselves hope to benefit.”
Mark Chopko, general counsel to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has outraged plaintiffs’ lawyers and advocates by encouraging victims to seek settlements without an attorney.
Victims would then avoid paying attorney fees, which generally run between 25 percent and 40 percent of each payout.
“The group that stands to gain the most from this is the plaintiffs’ bar,” Chopko said.
Lawyers for victims say Chaput’s comments are another attempt by the church to avoid responsibility for predatory clerics. They contend it’s irresponsible for Catholic officials to suggest that people deal directly with dioceses that for decades ignored or covered up abuse.
“If the defendants, in this case the bishops, did the right thing by the people they had harmed, then there’d be no need for people to hire lawyers,” said Larry Drivon, a California lawyer who has hundreds of abuse claims pending against dioceses in his state.
Lawyers such as Drivon have become the principal targets of complaints from church leaders, who are trying to withstand the financial blow of the crisis.
Three dioceses have sought bankruptcy protection, others have cut budgets and sold property to fund multimillion-dollar settlements – and the claims keep pouring in.
Dioceses received 783 new credible allegations last year, according to the bishops’ conference, after paying out $1.5 billion in abuse-related costs since 1950.
Drivon and Jeff Anderson, a Minnesota lawyer who handles abuse cases nationwide, helped draft a California bill that won unanimous approval abolishing the state’s time limits on civil sex abuse lawsuits for one year. That measure prompted hundreds of new claims, while serving as a model for legislation in Ohio, Colorado, Maryland, Delaware and elsewhere. The idea has so far failed to win approval outside of California.
Less publicly, church leaders have complained that the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, the most vocal of the victims’ groups, takes donations from lawyers who handle abuse cases. David Clohessy, the network’s national director, said donations from plaintiffs’ lawyers make up about 18 percent of the group’s annual budget.
