The Catholic Hierarchy Just Doesn’t Understand

The gist of Douglas Kmiec’s Dec. 8 commentary, “It’s a ‘Get the Bishops’ Law,” is that the Catholic Church has now, in one fell swoop, become a victim. To the degree that the new law changes the statute of limitations for tortious civil conduct, it will not be held unconstitutional. As it relates to civil cases, the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws was designed to prevent a new definition of an act being used as a method of penalizing past behavior that was not otherwise tortious at the time. A change of the statute of limitations does not create a new definition of conduct; it merely goes back further in time.

If the present crisis could simply be handled internally by the Catholic Church, then of course this would be the best way to handle it. But individual Catholics are not just members of a church; they are citizens of a state and a country. These individuals need to be protected from people in authority in a church that systematically suppressed information about egregious conduct. If a matter is suppressed for many years by bishops or others in authority, what deterrent do these figures have to cause them not to suppress information about such conduct?

Changing the statute of limitations is one obvious answer. This is not anti-Catholic; it is pro-justice.

Ed Reynolds

Anaheim

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Kmiec makes some valid points about whether the suspension of the statute of limitations to take effect Jan. 1 is good legislation, let alone constitutional. However, his column and the California bishops’ letter read at every Mass on Sunday smacked of spin-doctoring.

He writes that such laws put the good work the Catholic Church does in jeopardy. I would assert that the good work that Catholics do has already been put in jeopardy. In Los Angeles, dozens of ministries were either cut altogether or hobbled. A church hierarchy that would rather cut very important services, like gay and lesbian outreach, campus ministry and others, deserves the kind of vitriol this law represents.

Kmiec and the bishops rightly insist that the assets of the church belong to the people, but those people were never consulted or considered in Los Angeles. The financial board told Cardinal Roger Mahony to cover a $4-million shortfall, and he and his minions set about firing people and closing ministries. The one thing I have heard from my fellow Catholics, over and over again, is a frustration at not being given a chance to raise the necessary funds to save those ministries. Recent revelations in Boston and elsewhere make it clear that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is in need of a serious wake-up call.

Frank Grande

Lakewood

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Re “Priests May Seek Law’s Resignation,” Dec. 7: Kudos to Father Walter Cuenin and the other 35 priests for their courage in defying Cardinal Bernard Law’s ban on archdiocesan gatherings at Cuenin’s parish. Perhaps this is the small beginning of the Catholic clergy finally showing some initiative and reclaiming its self-respect from an arrogant and out-of-touch hierarchy.

The more haunting question remains unanswered: Did Law lie about these latest revelations when he met with Pope John Paul II last summer or did he simply omit them? It seems inconceivable that the pope would not have demanded Law’s resignation himself had he known the full extent of the scandal.

Martin G. Mutsch

Seal Beach