Letter From Bishops Draws Mixed Reactions

Father Martin Benzoni paused uncomfortably midway through his Sunday Mass at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.

“You may have read about the letter,” he told parishioners at the Costa Mesa church.

With that, he turned from the day’s lesson of St. John wandering in the desert 2,000 years ago to a letter by the state’s 12 bishops warning of a possible onslaught of costly new sexual-abuse lawsuits against the church and its clergy.

In cathedrals and parish churches throughout California, many -- but not all -- Catholic priests took to the pulpit to read the letter, which outlined changes in state law that waive the statute of limitations on sexual-abuse charges through 2003.

“This law allows people to file lawsuits against dioceses and California employees based upon claims that rose many decades ago,” the letter states. “The Catholic Church has been falsely portrayed as a large corporation with ‘deep pockets.’ ”

Reaction from parishioners was mixed, reflecting deep divisions within the church.

“I don’t like the new law,” said Darlene Powers, 70, who has attended St. John’s for 20 years. “Every 10-year-old knows to go tell their parents if someone touched the.... If you’re 40, and you were abused when you were in high school, it’s water down the drain.”

St. John’s is one of many churches across the country caught in the scandal. A former pastor was placed on paid leave in November after he was accused in a lawsuit of sexually abusing a boy in the early 1980s.

Catherine Hicks of Los Angeles attended church at St. Paul the Aspostle in Westwood, where the bishops’ letter was tucked in the weekly bulletin but not read aloud. She was unimpressed by concerns expressed by the bishops that churches could be bankrupted by the new law.

“So? The church started with nothing, and we can start over with nothing,” Hicks said. “The bad priests should not be protected. I think the parishioners should be talking about it weekly.”

At Ventura’s 220-year-old San Buenaventura Mission, Msgr. Patrick J. O’Brien read the letter at the noon Mass, then moved on to other matters. Church member Jim Stiffler said he was upset that there was no further comment, saying it was all too typical of the church’s reaction to abuse allegations from the scandal’s outset.

“When he started to read it, it was in such a businesslike manner,” said Stiffler, a manufacturer of aircraft parts who lives in Oxnard. “There was no compassion to it. I just didn’t want to hear it.”

Stiffler said that the state law “won’t do any good for the church” but added that top church officials should be blamed for the losses any individual parishes might suffer.

“The hierarchy never took care of the problem,” he said. “When you get down to it, they handled it terribly.”

At Our Lady of the Assumption in Ventura, parishioner Jim Farley was highly critical of the law, contending that it’s nothing more than a get-rich-quick scheme for people who see the church as an easy target.

“Priests who violated children should be prosecuted,” said Farley, a well-known defense attorney and a deacon at his church. “But I think we’re way beyond that now. We’re now heavily into the greed factor.”

The law could end up crippling day-to-day operations at some parishes and would never have been passed if the prime target were a school district, a government agency or a corporation, he said.

At Holy Family Cathedral in Orange, Jim Watson, 31, a lawyer from Orange, said he was glad the letter was read.

“The parish is being upfront, aggressive and reassuring, so that was very helpful,” he said.

Outside, members of the national Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests handed out fliers and a letter from the mother of an alleged abuse victim. Sherida Ruiz, 54, said she was there to encourage parishioners to hear both sides of the story and let them know that it is OK for them to come forward.

Ruiz alleged her son, who is now 33, was molested by a priest when he was 10. She said he is contemplating whether to sue under the new law.

“This is protecting our children and seeking justice, not fighting the statute of limitations,” Ruiz said of the new law.

After reading the letter at St. John’s in Costa Mesa, Father Benzoni groaned before returning to the day’s Gospel readings.

“I hate these things,” he said. “But they’re important. They’re important.”

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Times staff writers Mai Tran and Steve Hymon contributed to this report.