Priests’ Sex Abuse Cases Hit the Legal System

Your Dec. 3 editorial, “Church in Murky Waters,” is biased and sophomoric. You have strongly urged and supported the fact that clerics in the Catholic Church should be subject to the legal system that applies to all of us. I and most Catholics would agree with this. Why do you now take the position that the church should not be entitled to avail itself of that same legal system that, through the bankruptcy laws, attempts to protect entities so that they might survive economically? Certainly you must be aware that the trial lawyers will push this situation until the Catholic Church is no longer able to serve its members and provide services in many areas to people of all faiths.

Raymond C. Fox

Rancho Palos Verdes

*

I am a practicing Catholic who would welcome an explanation of why the church did not let parishioners in on the fact that Gov. Gray Davis did not veto the bill passed in June that changed the statute of limitations regarding sexual abuse. After all, “in reality, the vast majority of Catholic assets belong to the people” (Dec. 3). The poor and those in need would not have supported anyone, not even a Democrat, who favored a bill that would so affect the church’s ability with regard to works of charity, education, worship and the sacraments. The church had the power to change the passage of the bill and/or the outcome of the election. Its leaders should have been whipping up the legislators and the governor at the time the bill was being considered, rather than the parishioners after the fact.

Kathleen Emmons

Newport Beach