Reading Rat - January 2011

Articles, Essays, Reviews

What Lies Beneath: Uncovering the Health of Milwaukee's People, 1880-1929, by Brigitte Marina Charaus, Marquette University

The past, or 'The Progressive', is another country

That the political editor of The Progressive thinks government gives us our freedoms reminded me of this from President Kennedy's inaugural address, fifty years ago tomorrow.

the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.

Bears After Luckman: Monsters of the Middling

While I dig out my Jim McMahon Packer jersey, enjoy this QB retrospective by Mike Tanier in the Chicago edition of today's New York Times. Note: Jay Cutler not mentioned.

The Almighty

Ruth Conniff, political editor of The Progressive, was Dreading the Scott Walker era in an Isthmus op-ed.

Inauguration Day dawned dark and cold. The kids headed back to school, and our born-again Christian governor announced at his prayer breakfast that the Creator, not government, gives us our freedoms.

Maybe Gov. Walker was thinking of the Preamble to the Wisconsin Constitution, which he has taken an oath to support.

We, the people of Wisconsin, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings, form a more perfect government, insure domestic tranquility and promote the general welfare, do establish this constitution.

The political editor would, I surmise, have been expected to know this back when it was La Follette's Magazine.

(via Right On)

P.S. For "Inauguration Day dawned dark and cold" I nominate her as the Bulwer-Lytton of political editors.

For the headline writer, can't quite credit you with "Dread Scott".

The alternative to episcopal testimonial endoscopy

Archdiocese assets to be put under microscope in Bankruptcy Court, reports today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Annysa Johnson included how various assets claimed not subject to creditors' claims were treated in other diocesan bankruptcies.

Trust structures were contested in Portland, Spokane and Wilmington. In Wilmington, the court ruled that millions of dollars in an investment trust held by the diocese for parishes, schools, cemeteries and other organizations would become part of the estate because they had been commingled with diocesan funds and couldn't be traced to their original sources - a decision that is now affecting pensions for lay employees.

Presumably that result was taken into account by our Archdiocese of Milwaukee, for example in the Faith In Our Future Trust. There is the added reassurance some may find in having Bishop Sklba as one of the five trustees.

Another item of interest is Archdiocesan real estate holdings.

In San Diego, where the bankruptcy filing was dismissed after an outside agreement with victims was reached, creditors had accused the diocese of significantly undervaluing its holdings. News coverage at the time of the bankruptcy's dismissal put the assessed value of church properties there at more than $400 million, saying it included single family homes, vacant residential and commercial lots, multiuse buildings and condominiums.

Lawyers for that diocese said Friday that diocesan ownership of the properties was never established at trial.

But U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Louise DeCarl Adler was troubled enough to rebuke the diocese at the close of the bankruptcy, calling it "disingenuous" and saying it had enough assets to settle its claims without ever going to bankruptcy.

"Disingenuous" seems almost mild compared to choosing bankruptcy when the alternative is defending against claims of misrepresentation. On the amount of property, you might recall that Paul Marcoux's abuse claim against Archbishop Weakland was settled with $450,000 from our Archdiocese's "real estate and property fund". As I recall, payment from that fund had a bit of a change-under-the-sofa-cushions air in Weakland's memoirs.

Will bankruptcy put the abuse claims behind our Archdiocese financially? Not necessarily.

In Portland, for example, the court set an April 2005 deadline for most claims. But it left the door open for more than 20 years for certain claimants: minors, and those with repressed memories who didn't recall the abuse in time or didn't connect it to their injuries, such as addictions or emotional problems, according to the Portland archdiocese.

That is, funds might have to be set aside from which claims will be paid well after Archbishop Listecki is retired.

Finally, "bankruptcy proceedings rarely result in ... depositions like the one Milwaukee victims wanted of retired Bishop Richard Sklba... ."

P.S. The bankruptcy was filed on Archbishop Listecki's first anniversary as Archbishop. If the bankruptcy itself concludes some time next year, a twenty year claim fund would run to 2032. It could conclude on Archbishop Weakland's 55th anniversary, or even his 105th birthday.

Watch your step

Milwaukee Catholic Herald Wednesday, 05 January 2011 12:36:

The archbishop said that Chapter 11 reorganization is the best way to achieve two goals.

Dilbert October 30, 1995

Parish is the word

In a hearing yesterday,

... [Bankruptcy Judge Susan V.] Kelley cut off one attorney who, while questioning the [Milwaukee] archdiocese's chief financial officer, tried to lay the foundation for an argument that parishes are run by the archdiocese. The line of questioning by attorney Jim Stang appeared to be in response to the archdiocese's assertion Tuesday that the assets of parishes and schools cannot be tapped to pay creditors because they are separately incorporated.

See number 18 in our Archdiocese's Reorganization Q & A. Specifically, separate incorporation is permitted by Wisconsin Statutues section 187.19.

If that turns out not to protect our parishes, sections 187.20 through 187.33 on liability and indemnification will be of interest.

No bishops were harmed in the bankrupting of this Archdiocese

My temptation is to ask how our Archdiocese of Milwaukee can be filing for bankruptcy (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, New York Times) when only weeks ago Bishop Richard Sklba said in the print version of this Catholic Herald interview,

"My temptation is to say 'Tell me what we did wrong.' In that time and place. 'Tell me what we did wrong,'" he said.

His claim is that our Archdiocese's handling of abuse cases was state of the art, and those who say otherwise are unfairly applying hindsight.

I assume his challenge to be told otherwise was not merely rhetorical. Peter Isely and Jim Smith in The Sexual Abuse of Children in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee include this case.

It was an “open secret” that Fr. Dennis Pecore, a priest with the Society of the Divine Savior religious order who was assigned to Milwaukee’s Mother of Good Counsel parish and grade school, was sexually abusing boys at the parish and the school.

In July of 1984, a teacher who was alarmed by the priest’s behavior of routinely taking boys to his bedroom wrote to Archbishop Weakland urging action before “it goes public.” Archbishop Weakland wrote back, “Any libelous material found in your letter will be scrutinized carefully by our lawyers.”

Frustrated, the teacher and two others continued to write the archdiocese, warning of the danger Pecore posed to children. All three were fired.

While it might well be shown this was consistent with our Archdiocese's standard operating procedures in handling abuse cases, it was not state of the art handling. It also indicates that, in fact, bankruptcy is primarily being used to forestall Milwaukee's present and former bishops having to testify. Our Archdiocesan newspaper's brief report includes that

According to Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki, the decision to file “is occurring because priest-perpetrators sexually abused minors, going against everything the Church and the priesthood represent.”

One need only recall the case of Father Pecore to be reminded that it was the acts and omissions of our bishops in handling these cases, rather than the underlying acts of priests, that lead to this bankruptcy filing.

Update: The National Catholic Reporter report includes Mr. Jeffrey Anderson's assertion that the bankruptcy filing was the day before the scheduled deposition of Bishop Sklba. Our Archdiocsese disputes this. (via SNAP Network)


P.S. On there being no way our Archdiocese would have taken cases to trial and have our bishops testify, see my prior posts Pictures at a deposition and The salt of the earth, like the Romans at Carthage, both May 16, 2009, and In service to the Word of God August 26, 2006.

Dis-Obey

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The political autobiography of Congressman David Obey (D-WI) included his interpretation.

when groups come into my office to ask me for something, before we begin to talk, I have them read - out loud - two signs that are hanging on my office wall.

The first reads, "If what you want costs money, are you willing to go home and tell your friends that we need to cut back on the size of the president's tax cuts so there is room for it in the budget?"

The second asks, "Is there anything you want me to do for somebody else that is more important than whatever it is you want me to do for you?"

I ask those questions because I hope they will make at least one person a day think about the broader obligations of citizenship.

Today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that we, the people, are still not up to his standards.