Word: roman
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...used to be said that in polite society one shouldn't discuss sex or money. But that's no longer possible in the Roman Catholic Church. Just last week Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland acknowledged paying $450,000 in 1998 to settle a claim that two decades ago he sexually assaulted a 30-year-old graduate student. (The Vatican accepted his resignation a day after the revelation.) Add the Weakland settlement to the huge sums other dioceses have paid to cover sex-abuse claims in recent years: an estimated $25 million in Santa Fe, N.M.; nearly $30 million in Boston...
...revenues totaling around $7.5 billion annually. Even more impressive are its vast property holdings, which include everything from cathedrals and schools to beachfront retreats, stately mansions, golf courses and television and radio stations. But the real secret of the church's financial strength is that each of the 178 Roman Catholic dioceses in the U.S. organizes its affairs separately; nearly all employ a highly complex and decentralized legal structure that so far has effectively shielded their assets from legal claims brought against priests...
There is much to protect. According to lawyers for 38 plaintiffs in Rhode Island, the Roman Catholic diocese of Providence operates more than 220 corporate subsidiaries, including the Aldrich Mansion, a sprawling compound on Narragansett Bay where the Brad Pitt movie Meet Joe Black was filmed. Shooting took six weeks on a property that charges $3,000 to hold a baby shower there. The Providence diocese owns $44 million in real estate, and income from its property finances a wide range of social services. Diocese officials argue that it cannot afford to compensate victims of sex abuse...
...obstacles. In 1998 Minnesota attorney Jeffrey Anderson sued the diocese in Stockton, Calif., on behalf of two brothers who had been sexually abused. Anderson discovered--in the middle of the trial, when he happened to rephrase a question posed to the diocese comptroller--that the diocese operated the separate Roman Catholic Welfare Corp., worth an estimated $400 million. But it was too late to add another defendant to the suit and too expensive to start a new trial. A jury awarded $29 million to Anderson's clients, but the diocese, pleading poverty, managed to have the judgment reduced...
Current headlines might give the impression that the Roman Catholic Church has a lot on its plate these days, but last week the Vatican's tirelessly vigilant Fides news service found time to publish an editorial chastising celebrities for wearing fancy crosses. The opinion piece, "A Matter of Coherence," observed, "There is a spreading fashion of wearing crosses decorated with diamonds and other precious stones." It cites JENNIFER ANISTON and NAOMI CAMPBELL, among others. "Is it consistent with the Gospel," the article asked, "to spend millions on a copy of the sacred symbol of the Christian faith and perhaps forget...