A recent article in the usually-liberal National Catholic Reporter describes a lawsuit being brought by the Archdiocese of Chicago.
Fraudulent Claims
The article begins, “The Archdiocese of Chicago filed a countersuit March 24 against seven alleged victims of clergy child sex abuse who either have pending settlements or have already received settlements in the millions of dollars.” A couple of paragraphs later, the article explains.
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“The lawsuit accuses the defendants of a ‘scheme to manufacture and assert fraudulent claims of priest sexual abuse for financial gain.’ It alleges ‘a quid pro quo among coconspirators’ who, planning to share settlement payouts, coached each other in successfully pursuing…’ dubious claims.’”
A statement from the Archdiocese provides greater detail. “The civil filing in Circuit Court of Cook County exposes a racketeering enterprise among a web of connected individuals—some of whom are convicted felons and known gang members—who took advantage of the Archdiocese’s pastoral response to compensate real victims of priest sexual abuse. The materials include more than two dozen individuals who filed claims, recruited false claimants and coached them on how to describe fake allegations of abuse involving [a] former priest.”
A Highly Charged Situation
In other words, the defendants—thirty in number—were attempting to blackmail the Archdiocese. Some had already extorted money from the Church and were teaching others to follow suit.
Everyone is quick to accuse the Church of sexual abuse. Media will amplify claims that often date back decades or target deceased priests who cannot defend themselves. However, few will take the side of the innocent priest who must face false claims contrived by gangs to extort money from the Church. The revelation that gangs are involved in the extortions indicates the effort is organized and tested.
In the Archdiocese of Chicago, this may have led to paying untold thousands (maybe even millions) of dollars to blackmailers who claimed to be victims but were actually fraudsters.
This revelation of such an open conspiracy should itself be seen as a scandal and cause for outcry.
However, the liberal media are silent when an innocent priest is the victim.
Guilty Until Proven Innocent
There is a reason for this silence. Indeed, unfortunately, society at large is all too willing to believe that many Catholic priests are molesters. In a reversal of sound law, the priest is declared guilty until proven innocent. In the meantime, his reputation is sullied and difficult to restore.
Many liberals are disposed to believe any claim against the Church because they resent any doctrine that claims, as Catholicism so rightly claims, to be the bearer of truth and morality. Liberals prefer to blame any system that openly forbids their favorite sins.
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In 2018, the accomplished TFP scholar Luiz Sérgio Solimeo described the usual outcome of such people when confronted with the clerical abuse scandals. “[I]n the ongoing media uproar about clerical scandals, the secularists and Catholic liberals usually blame the Church’s hierarchical structure as the cause of these abominations. In so doing, they affirm or imply that by changing this structure and thus ending inequality, abuses would cease or would not have existed.”
Two errors are immediately apparent. First, as Mr. Solimeo points out, “such abuses also occur in Protestant churches,” which abandoned clerical celibacy over five hundred years ago. Second, such thinking applies an individual’s sins to the organization that employs that individual. Many people are all too willing to accept such thinking regarding the Church. Ironically, the same people never extend their assumptions to other walks of life. They would never think, “Fraudsters must run that bank because they employed a branch manager who turned out to be an embezzler.”
Punishing the System, not the Criminal
This background of blaming the system is at work in the Chicago extortion case.
In Chicago, like many dioceses in the United States, the blackmailers are gaming the diocese for payouts based on the prejudice of the public, which is conditioned to believe that the church structures, not the wayward priests, are to blame for the abuse. They take advantage of the vulnerability of the Church to push their claims. In the eyes of the public, huge settlements punish the institution, not the criminal. This perception encourages resentful and dishonest individuals to come forth alleging abuse since it fits into the liberal narrative that targets the Church as a corrupt institution.
Settling Claims
In many cases, dioceses aid this process by often explicitly stating that they are disposed to side with the alleged victim and pay enough to settle the claim before it goes to court, even if there is little evidence to back up the claims. Meanwhile, the priest is assumed to be guilty.
Such a “solution” can be costly. Other than the money, there are two other harmful effects. First, the diocese becomes an “ally” of the alleged victim and, therefore, an enemy of the accused priest who may be innocent.
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Unfortunately, in such cases, the legions who turn out to accuse Holy Mother Church just scamper off to find the next “victim.” All too often, the dioceses just want the case to go away. It is just easier to abandon the unfortunate, innocent priest than seriously contest each individual case. If the priest is deceased, as in cases dating back forty or fifty years, the priest’s historical record is forever blemished.
The Perils of “Believe the Victim”
A second danger is the one the Chicago Archdiocese faces. If the first response to such a situation is to say, “We believe the victim,” followed by the treasurer’s writing of a substantial check, the diocese opens itself to massive fraud.
As the Chicago cases show, there are plenty of people who will game the system to their advantage. The object of any investigation is the pursuit of justice. In these cases of fraud, the priest’s innocence must be defended. Any agenda that turns these cases into a class struggle narrative must be rejected and denounced.
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