Lawyers' money grab

Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea's spirited defense of plaintiffs' attorneys who sue the Catholic church for sexual abuse (NCR, Dec. 29) was confused. Her thesis is that bishops who complain about attorneys are simply trying to pass off their own responsibility. But isn't it possible that the bishops could accept responsibility and yet be right that the attacks on the church, especially by attorneys who stand to make a great deal of money, have now become excessive? In fact, this seems to be the case. Ms. Frawley-O'Dea is just wrong when she asserts that attorneys are only involved because victims first approached bishops and got no response. In California, for example, a law was passed that lifted the statute of limitations on sexual abuse suits against Catholic schools while not lifting it for public schools (an obvious unfairness because the number of cases of sexual abuse in California public schools has been, by reasonable estimates, hundreds of times what it has been in California Catholic schools). Following the passage of that law, hundreds of new cases--cases that dioceses had never known of before--were brought against the church. It is in the public record that the very lawyers who crafted that law were, in fact, plaintiffs' lawyers who then turned around and filed their cases against the church. If Enron or Halliburton engaged in such behavior (manipulating the legislative process to their own advantage), NCR would be outraged. Has your own disdain for the bishops grown so blinding that you cannot see that a massive, and excessive, money grab is going on against the church--not by victims, but by powerful lawyers?

AUGUST TICAN

San Diego

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