...a $100 million settlement was paid out by the Diocese of Orange, and $660 million by the Diocese of Los Angeles.

Actually, we (via our insurance carriers) are the ones picking up a good chunk of that tab - $227 million to be exact:

"The archdiocese will pay $250 million, insurance carriers will pay a combined $227 million and several religious orders will chip in $60 million. The remaining $123 million will come from litigation with religious orders that chose not to participate in the deal, with the archdiocese guaranteeing resolution of those 80 to 100 cases within five years, Hennigan said. The archdiocese is released from liability in those claims, said Tod Tamberg, church spokesman."

--http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/D8QDUB880.html

I'd like to point out a drawback to simply getting rid of statutes of limitation, particularly when it involves an accusation like child molestation. How, exactly, can the accused defend him or herself against an inflammatory accusation that goes back decades?

Brushing aside this concern with the offhand acknowledgement that while the Catholic church "might be a tempting target for unfair suits," we need to go ahead and do it because "the victims deserve their day in court," ignores the fact that it is individuals who are being accused -- not just that villanous "deep pocketed" abstract of a Catholic church with its history of "shady dealings." Child molestation is a profoundly serious accusation that can destroy the life of a defendant even if it's determined to have been false. It's not just the victim who deserves a "day in court." The accused also deserves, not just that day in court, but a system where guilt is not presumed and the evidence presented is not so heavily reliant on bare accusation and/or so out of date that it's practically impossible to refute.

As Clinton says, lobbyists represent real perverts, I mean people.

It is rather unclear just how rich the Catholic Church is (it doesn't help how secretive they are on the topic). Certainly they have a lot of assets, in terms of land and infrastructure (to say nothing of art, imagine what the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel would be worth), a thousand or two years of existence will do that for you, but since they are occupied by things like cathedrals and convents, you can see how the church would be reluctant to liquidate them.

In terms of cash, well, despite fevered conspiracy mongering by wingnuts like Dan Brown, they certainly they aren't living high off the hog or blowing their dough on hookers and blow on a big scale. Indeed, their operations seem to be run on a very parsimonious basis (I had the bad luck to be sort of employed by them at one time). It really does seem that cash taken from them to give to victims might very well be coming out of the pensions of retired priests and programs for the poor in the third world.

It is also debatable how powerful they really are. Certainly they have enough jam to keep the abortion wars going; but they don't have enough to win. They certainly have evil aspects, like William Donohue's Catholic League; but then they also have Sister Helen Prejean.

So yeah, your apostate eyes may be a bit veiled here. A statute of limitations on criminal charges would, I think be a bad idea, some kinds of crime don't ever stop hurting. And at least there you are punishing the individual who did the deed. Indeed, criminal charges against church figures who protected pedophiles and put children at risk are long overdue (Criminal Endangerment?). But some reasonable limits on the civil lawsuits might be appropriate; sometimes it looks like the process is robbing A to pay B recompense for the sins of C.

When Cardinal (then Archbishop) Mahony protected one of the child molesters by harboring the latter (former seminary classmate) in his own apartments for two years to protect him from arrest and indictment by the LA County Sheriff and Los Angeles district attorney, that should be a crime as well.

If they put limitations on filing and going through legal channels to bring them to justice, what would prevent a person from taking the law into their own hands? Dead priests, everywhere! If one touched my kids, I'd be in jail, not in court.

....is good!

This already very sick organization is now coming clean that people and God are not their prime goals in care-taking and teaching.

No god can accept anything less than justice for the crimes of so many against our children.

Are the Catholic leaders whining because they fear frivolous claims or have they simply done the math by looking at what has been on the books for years?

Frankly, they should get what they deserve. Keeping your pants on solves the problem, oh holy ones.

Come on, we all know they're guilty, every last damn one of them! I know it, you know it, no one denies it!

Laws are to protect the innocent, and we know the Church is no innocent, so why bother with laws at all!

10 years, 20 years? 50 years time, what does it matter, I know I belive the accuser, not the accused, so why even bother with a trial.

Come on, we all know the truth here, so let's just get about to seizing assets, and riding everylast preist out of town on a rail, it's the only safe course of action.

Won't somebody think of the children?

Canuckistan Bob, your post puzzles me greatly. You say that "It is rather unclear just how rich the Catholic Church is", and that they might have this land etc. that they are "reluctant to liquidate" seeing as they have churches and convents on them.

I call bullshit. Rich people are ALWAYS "reluctant to liquidate" things of value to pay of for "sins" they have committed. Why wouldn't they sell off some of that pricey artwork so that you wouldn't have to collect only a "parsimonious" wage? There's no convents or churches on those, is there? Face it, the church is greedy. Half of those churches don't have the parishioners or the priests to make them viable entities. They need to just sell them off and pay for the injustice that they perpetrated. And frankly, it doesn't even matter if there is a viable church on that land. Say a well-off family of four, was living in a 4000 square feet house, and they incur a great deal of credit card bills. The courts would not feel badly for that family having to sell that house to move into a more modest home in order to pay that debt. And that's what should happen here. Any claims of "financial hardship" on the part of the Catholic church is a crock.

Regarding how difficult it is to defend oneself against past accusations. That may be true, but it cuts both ways. Remember that the burden of proof is on the prosecution. About the only priests that are going to be prosecuted are going to be the "worst of the worst", when they have multiple reports by independent witnesses and/or over a long period of time, which by sheer volume of evidence (plus evidence of the church's movement of said priest from one locale to another at key points in the alleged timeline of the incidents) will have to be enough to convict them beyond a reasonable doubt. Any priest that only molested one child, 30 years ago, just once or for a short period of time, and was never found out by the church and was not independently witnessed, is not going to get prosecuted because there won't be enough evidence to sustain a burden of proof.