I-Team: Teacher says paying sex abuse victims with money from Catholic schools will hurt students
A Maryland Catholic school teacher told the 11 News I-Team she's outraged that the Archdiocese of Baltimore plans to take nearly half of the money going to pay victim-survivors of clergy sex abuse from Catholic schools and parishes.
Last week, the Archdiocese of Baltimore filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid the potential for lawsuits pertaining to clergy child sexual abuse. An attorney representing the archdiocese in bankruptcy court said Tuesday that the archdiocese plans to create a trust to pay out claims, 55% of which will come from insurance carriers and 45% from parishes, schools and related charities.
The teacher said she first learned of the archdiocese's plan during a teachers' meeting earlier this week, where her principal said the archdiocese would be taking money from school budgets to pay victim-survivors.
"There were a couple of teachers that spoke up, and it was kind of shrugged off, like, 'The Archdiocese of Baltimore is too powerful,'" the teacher told the I-Team.
The teacher said she and her colleagues agree that victim-survivors need to be compensated, but what she questions is the archbishop's decision to take money from schools to pay them.
"The Catholic Church is revictimizing kids. They've already made kids a victim, and they're revictimizing them," she told the I-Team. "My message to the archdiocese is to repent, to hear that it's the children that are going to have to pay for the sins of the priests that are continuing to be protected. It's outrageous. It's just outrageous."
She told the I-Team that her school has lacked resources for years, and the thought it would have even less money in the coming years is devastating.
"I don't see us being able to rebound from another hit, especially one as large as 50%. It's just going to continue to hurt kids," she told the I-Team. "I just appeal to the judge to think about the kids before he rules on where the money can come from."
https://www.wbaltv.com/article/archdioce...n/45470392
A Maryland Catholic school teacher told the 11 News I-Team she's outraged that the Archdiocese of Baltimore plans to take nearly half of the money going to pay victim-survivors of clergy sex abuse from Catholic schools and parishes.
Last week, the Archdiocese of Baltimore filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid the potential for lawsuits pertaining to clergy child sexual abuse. An attorney representing the archdiocese in bankruptcy court said Tuesday that the archdiocese plans to create a trust to pay out claims, 55% of which will come from insurance carriers and 45% from parishes, schools and related charities.
The teacher said she first learned of the archdiocese's plan during a teachers' meeting earlier this week, where her principal said the archdiocese would be taking money from school budgets to pay victim-survivors.
"There were a couple of teachers that spoke up, and it was kind of shrugged off, like, 'The Archdiocese of Baltimore is too powerful,'" the teacher told the I-Team.
The teacher said she and her colleagues agree that victim-survivors need to be compensated, but what she questions is the archbishop's decision to take money from schools to pay them.
"The Catholic Church is revictimizing kids. They've already made kids a victim, and they're revictimizing them," she told the I-Team. "My message to the archdiocese is to repent, to hear that it's the children that are going to have to pay for the sins of the priests that are continuing to be protected. It's outrageous. It's just outrageous."
She told the I-Team that her school has lacked resources for years, and the thought it would have even less money in the coming years is devastating.
"I don't see us being able to rebound from another hit, especially one as large as 50%. It's just going to continue to hurt kids," she told the I-Team. "I just appeal to the judge to think about the kids before he rules on where the money can come from."
https://www.wbaltv.com/article/archdioce...n/45470392
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"