When the Catholic church’s Pope Benedict XVI decided to step down, virtually everyone paying attention assumed that his possible ties to, and complicity in, monstrous church coverups of sex abuse by priests was the reason. The new Pope Francis has presented himself in a much more “liberal” light than his predecessors, and that has been—for the most part—a nice change. However, as a new report, commissioned by four law firms who have represented victims of the Catholic church, contradicts the nice and empathetic words recently coming out of the church’s mouths. The report, titled “Church Influencing State: How the Catholic Church Spent Millions Against Survivors of Clergy Abuse,” paints a picture of an organization waging millions against survivors in order to save millions in survivor litigations.
Highlighting the money spent by the church lobbying against laws that would allow longer statute of limitations in eight states, the researchers found the tax exempt organization spent upwards of $10 million—$10,602,587 to be exact. CBS News spoke with one of the attorneys from one of the law firms who commissioned the report, Gerald Williams, who said the report came out of a frustration on the part of the firms in dealing with these cases of clergy abuse. "We represent hundreds of people, who have truly been victimized by clergymen in the Catholic Church. We've heard a lot about the church's desire to be accountable and turn over a new leaf. But when we turn to the form where we can most help people and where we can get the most justice — the courts of justice — the church has been there blocking their efforts."
According to the report, the most money spent by the church was to lobby in Pennsylvania, where reports of at least 1000 cases were researched and shown the light of day. There, they spent $5,322,979 in an attempt to keep all of the current statute of limitations restrictions against victims and survivors in place. Likewise, the spent almost $3 million in New York fighting the Child Victims Act, which ultimately was signed into law, raising the age of when survivors could sue for the damages done when they were younger.
The money spent by the Catholic Church is places like Pennsylvania is only money found in public filings. There really is no way to know how much dark lord money they may or may not have spent through other channels. For example, this report does not take into account the technically unauthorized activism by more extremist groups like the Catholic League who attempted to “debunk” hundreds of molestation allegations based on concepts of “penetration.” Maybe you don’t need to spend money on hate-filled henchmen, when they’ll do it for their own anti-LGBTQ branding purposes. Or maybe you do and you just pretend you don’t.
Thou shalt not bear false witness.