Thurs, Aug. 3, 1995, San Francisco Examiner

The San Francisco Archdiocese has paid $300,000 over the last two decades to settle cases involving sexual misconduct by its clergy, The Examiner has learned.

The amount represents out-of-pocket costs to the local church settlements, counseling, attorney fees - and does not include payments covered by the archdiocese's insurance carrier.

Most payments were made in the last eight years, church officials said Wednesday. Until now, the archdiocese has repeatedly declined to reveal what it has paid in clergy misconduct costs.

The archdiocese has been rocked in recent years by several high-profile cases involving allegations of priestly pedophilia, most notably against Monsignor Patrick O'Shea, the former pastor of St. Cecilia's Church, one of the most prestigious parishes in the archdiocese. O'Shea was charged with sexually abusing nine young men from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Last month, a San Francisco judge dismissed 16 counts of child molestation against O'Shea because the statute of limitations forprosecution had expired.

After reviewing internal records, church officials disclosed the amount of settlement money Wednesday to counter longstanding concerns that local churches were shuttered last year in order to pay the costs of priestly pedophilia cases.

"Frankly, I feel that what has been perpetrated is a version of The Big Lie: Something untrue is said and repeated, time and time again," said the Rev. Robert McElroy, the archdiocese's vicar general. "It's said so often that people begin to believe it is true."

Last July 1, the archdiocese closed nine churches in San Francisco, one-fifth of its churches in The City.

"We are tired of hearing this . . . that the archdiocese has big debts that it hasn't paid or has had to pay huge amounts of money . . . because of pedophile claims," McElroy said. "It isn't true."

The archdiocese has an annual operating budget of $100 million, McElroy said. "Over a 20-year period, $300,000 is a negligible cost," he said.

The archdiocese is paying the therapy bills for some victims of clergy abuse; victims are permitted to choose their own counselors. It's also covering expenses for at least one victim to attend a "national healing" conference in Chicago being held next month by an 8,000-member group of clergy victims.

The $300,000 figure does not include claims pending against the archdiocese, including a civil lawsuit in which nine men who claim they were molested by priests say that the archdiocese and Archbishop John Quinn should pay punitive damages for covering up priestly pedophilia.

O'Shea, who pleaded not guilty to the charges filed against him by the district attorney, has been permanently relieved of his pastoral duties.

In an unrelated case, Brother Salvatore Billante, a longtime parish youth ministry advisor at Corpus Christi Church in San Francisco, was convicted of multiple counts of child sexual abuse during the 1970s and 1980s. He

served four years of an eight-year sentence at San Quentin Prison and was paroled in 1993.

Believed to have molested 24 youths, Billante cost the archdiocese, the Salesian Brothers and their insurance firms more than $750,000.

Ordinary Mutual handles insurance claims for the San Francisco Archdiocese, along with 11 other dioceses, including Oakland and San Jose.

Nationwide, over the last five years, it's been estimated by church observers and legal experts that the Catholic Church has paid about $400 million to settle about 400 cases involving allegations of pedophilia by priests. In many cases, the abuse occurred decades earlier, but victims either did not step forward or said their complaints were ignored by the church.

Go Back