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CNN Live Sunday
Interview With Tom Roberts
Aired December 01, 2002 - 17:16 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: "The Boston Globe" is reporting that the archdiocese there may actually file for bankruptcy to protect itself from sexual abuse lawsuits. More than 400 alleged victims say they were abused by priests. Filing for bankruptcy protection would stop the current lawsuits and prevent any new ones from being filed. Bankruptcy would actually give the archdiocese more time to reorganize its finances, and put all the plaintiffs into a single group, and that idea has church critics pretty angry.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK WEBB, PROTESTER: It's just a tactic by the church, it's a tactic to pressure the survivors, to pressure the lawyers to come to an agreement. I don't think it's based on reality, it's just another one of their hardball tactics. They say that they're in favor of helping the survivors, but in reality, they just want to play hardball.
JOSEPH GALLAGHER, COALITION OF CATHOLICS AND SURVIVORS: Most disappointing of all, is it would end the depositions. So the truth about what happened to these survivor victims would not come out, and that would be -- I think that would be a devastating loss for survivor victims, and it would also mean there would be no closure in this whole tragedy. It would be a devastating mistake for the archdiocese to do this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: Well, to look at what this type of move could mean, Tom Roberts is joining us tonight. He is the editor of "The National Catholic Reporter," an independent news weekly. Tom, good to see you. Thanks for being here.
TOM ROBERTS, EDITOR, NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER: Pleasure.
LIN: How is it that the archdiocese can actually justify that they don't have enough assets to pay out damages, or continue to operate? I mean, this is the Catholic Church.
ROBERTS: Yes. I don't know. And you asked -- the question in your run-up to this story, is this hardball or is the church broke? And I have a feeling that it's a little bit of each. Whatever the case -- and this is still in the speculative realm because we don't know if they're going to decide to do this -- but it would certainly raise the scandal to a new level. An archdiocese going bankrupt, especially with the stature of the Archdiocese of Boston, would be a very, very significant thing.
Whether they do it or not, the fact that they're considering it I think is significant in itself, because once again, we have the image of an archbishop gathering with his inner circle and a group of lawyers to figure out how to get out of this thing. And that's been the pattern since the very beginning.
One of the big criticisms of people who have watched this pattern, and our paper included, is that the bishops have consistently gone to the lawyers, gone to a legal solution to this, and left the community out of it. In fact, along -- you know, over the years, have not only ignored the victims but re-abused victims by countersuing and by not believing their stories, not listening to them.
So we have at the end game here another case of the people at the top of a closed system, unaccountable to anybody, again wanting to use the assets of this institution, which are really provided by the people, on their own and outside of any other kind of accountability.
LIN: What about internal accountability? I mean, is the archdiocese accountable to the opinion of the U.S. Catholic Church, or the Vatican? And how are those two bodies likely to respond to this plan?
ROBERTS: I can't imagine, first of all speaking of the Vatican, that Cardinal Law, if indeed they are considering this plan, would be doing this without the approval of the Vatican. He is very close to the pope, he has great stature in the Vatican. He has obviously had their support all along. You know, people who have had far less severe financial problems and scandal problems have had co-adjutors appointed for them, that is assistants who are going to be take over their position in a number of years. There've also -- you know, been arrangements, mostly behind the scenes, with other bishops helping out dioceses that have been in trouble.
This is way beyond that. So I don't know if there's an accountability to Rome, but I don't think he would be considering this without some knowledge on the part of people pretty high up in Rome.
LIN: Because don't you think from a legal perspective, though, that the victims, if the Archdiocese of Boston declares bankruptcy, then the victims would then go up the chain of command, would go after assets from the U.S. Catholic Church or even the Vatican, and clearly they would have the assets to pay off the damages if those damages were found to be in their favor?
ROBERTS: That could get interesting. I don't -- I don't have the legal background to even begin to understand how that would work or if they would be successful in pursuing that line.
But within the church, one of the things that I think coming out in this scandal is that within the church, there is a new cry, I think across the board, for levels of accountability that don't exist right now.
If you take, put aside the really divisive issues like women's ordination and ordination of married men, and other sexual issues that can be very divisive, and talk about governance, and the need for more clarity, for greater transparency in finances, and even how priests are chosen and how bishops are appointed, and the need for a greater role of lay people at really serious decision-making levels, I think you'd find agreement across the board, a far greater agreement than a lot of other issues, across the board from the conservatives to liberal spectrum.
LIN: All right, Tom, we'll see what happens. Thank you very much, Tom Roberts, editor of "The National Catholic Reporter."
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 1, 2002 - 17:16 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: "The Boston Globe" is reporting that the archdiocese there may actually file for bankruptcy to protect itself from sexual abuse lawsuits. More than 400 alleged victims say they were abused by priests. Filing for bankruptcy protection would stop the current lawsuits and prevent any new ones from being filed. Bankruptcy would actually give the archdiocese more time to reorganize its finances, and put all the plaintiffs into a single group, and that idea has church critics pretty angry.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK WEBB, PROTESTER: It's just a tactic by the church, it's a tactic to pressure the survivors, to pressure the lawyers to come to an agreement. I don't think it's based on reality, it's just another one of their hardball tactics. They say that they're in favor of helping the survivors, but in reality, they just want to play hardball.
JOSEPH GALLAGHER, COALITION OF CATHOLICS AND SURVIVORS: Most disappointing of all, is it would end the depositions. So the truth about what happened to these survivor victims would not come out, and that would be -- I think that would be a devastating loss for survivor victims, and it would also mean there would be no closure in this whole tragedy. It would be a devastating mistake for the archdiocese to do this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: Well, to look at what this type of move could mean, Tom Roberts is joining us tonight. He is the editor of "The National Catholic Reporter," an independent news weekly. Tom, good to see you. Thanks for being here.
TOM ROBERTS, EDITOR, NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER: Pleasure.
LIN: How is it that the archdiocese can actually justify that they don't have enough assets to pay out damages, or continue to operate? I mean, this is the Catholic Church.
ROBERTS: Yes. I don't know. And you asked -- the question in your run-up to this story, is this hardball or is the church broke? And I have a feeling that it's a little bit of each. Whatever the case -- and this is still in the speculative realm because we don't know if they're going to decide to do this -- but it would certainly raise the scandal to a new level. An archdiocese going bankrupt, especially with the stature of the Archdiocese of Boston, would be a very, very significant thing.
Whether they do it or not, the fact that they're considering it I think is significant in itself, because once again, we have the image of an archbishop gathering with his inner circle and a group of lawyers to figure out how to get out of this thing. And that's been the pattern since the very beginning.
One of the big criticisms of people who have watched this pattern, and our paper included, is that the bishops have consistently gone to the lawyers, gone to a legal solution to this, and left the community out of it. In fact, along -- you know, over the years, have not only ignored the victims but re-abused victims by countersuing and by not believing their stories, not listening to them.
So we have at the end game here another case of the people at the top of a closed system, unaccountable to anybody, again wanting to use the assets of this institution, which are really provided by the people, on their own and outside of any other kind of accountability.
LIN: What about internal accountability? I mean, is the archdiocese accountable to the opinion of the U.S. Catholic Church, or the Vatican? And how are those two bodies likely to respond to this plan?
ROBERTS: I can't imagine, first of all speaking of the Vatican, that Cardinal Law, if indeed they are considering this plan, would be doing this without the approval of the Vatican. He is very close to the pope, he has great stature in the Vatican. He has obviously had their support all along. You know, people who have had far less severe financial problems and scandal problems have had co-adjutors appointed for them, that is assistants who are going to be take over their position in a number of years. There've also -- you know, been arrangements, mostly behind the scenes, with other bishops helping out dioceses that have been in trouble.
This is way beyond that. So I don't know if there's an accountability to Rome, but I don't think he would be considering this without some knowledge on the part of people pretty high up in Rome.
LIN: Because don't you think from a legal perspective, though, that the victims, if the Archdiocese of Boston declares bankruptcy, then the victims would then go up the chain of command, would go after assets from the U.S. Catholic Church or even the Vatican, and clearly they would have the assets to pay off the damages if those damages were found to be in their favor?
ROBERTS: That could get interesting. I don't -- I don't have the legal background to even begin to understand how that would work or if they would be successful in pursuing that line.
But within the church, one of the things that I think coming out in this scandal is that within the church, there is a new cry, I think across the board, for levels of accountability that don't exist right now.
If you take, put aside the really divisive issues like women's ordination and ordination of married men, and other sexual issues that can be very divisive, and talk about governance, and the need for more clarity, for greater transparency in finances, and even how priests are chosen and how bishops are appointed, and the need for a greater role of lay people at really serious decision-making levels, I think you'd find agreement across the board, a far greater agreement than a lot of other issues, across the board from the conservatives to liberal spectrum.
LIN: All right, Tom, we'll see what happens. Thank you very much, Tom Roberts, editor of "The National Catholic Reporter."
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
