How America's Catholic Church crucified itself

How America's Catholic Church crucified itself

4,000 paedophile priests identified
80 churches closed down
An archbishop forced to resign
$800m paid in lawsuits
100,000 child victims estimated ? and thousands more still at risk

The archbishop's summer residence was the first to go. There had been questions: why does he need the picture-postcard colonial mansion, with its five bedrooms and private beach on the exclusive Cape Cod shoreline? Didn't he already have an opulent mansion in Boston? The three-story abode, resplendent in marble and mahogany to reflect its occupant's stature, had been built in the style of an Italian palazzo, and the archbishop's daily routine was catered for by a posse of nuns. The beach-house sale raised more than $2.5m, but it didn't stop there. His official Boston residence had to be sold too, and, along with 43 neighbouring acres, raised over $100m. But it didn't stop there either.

More than 80 Catholic churches in the Boston archdiocese were ordered to close their doors to save overheads. Parishioners occupied some of them, sleeping on pews, in a hopeless bid to save them. But still the inexorable rot ate away at the fabric of the church.

The archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Bernard Law, 74, was forced to resign. He had paid a heavy personal price. This only son of an air-force colonel, who joined the priesthood in 1961 and became one of the most powerful men in the United States after fighting in the front line of Mississippi's civil-rights movement, was ?retired? to Rome ? a life's work sullied because he put the church's name before the protection of his flock. Law had spent 18 years effectively protecting paedophile priests, who went on, time and again, to re-offend and rape children entrusted to their care by devout parents. It emerged that Law's response to overwhelming evidence of paedophile activity was simply to move the priest to another parish, often allowing them to continue working with children, to write them glowing references and tributes, and to pay off victims' families. More than 1,000 children in the Boston area were sacrificed in the interests of protecting the diocese from scandal.

The years of shielding abusive priests came back to haunt Law, when the weight of dammed-up outrage burst out of the confessional and swamped the church. Churches closed and the residences were sold to pay a massive legal bill that matched the enormity of the crime.

Investigations and the church's own files have revealed that more than 220 priests in the Boston archdiocese alone were guilty of molesting or abusing 789 children ? and those were just the cases in which the victims were willing to come forward. It cost the archdiocese over $100m to settle claims from 500 victims. But the meltdown was not restricted to Boston. As the city's disgrace raged, more files were opened and investigations launched in other parts of the US. Hundreds, then thousands of victims across the country began to speak out. The high number of cases may have been dismissed as mass hysteria had it not been for the meticulous records kept by the Catholic Church itself. Over the past 50 years, its own internal investigations had secretly confirmed thousands of complaints, then buried them.

There are over 60m Catholics in the US; 194 archdioceses such as Boston, which average 100 parishes apiece; and nearly 45,000 priests to serve them all. As the victims have told their stories, so the archdioceses have paid the price. In Dallas the church has sold $11m worth of property to help fund a $30m settlement; in Providence, Rhode Island, the church has sold its bishop's summer residence to finance a $14m settlement for 36 cases of abuse; in California, Santa Rosa diocese has sold real estate to fund a $16m court case; and Orange County has paid over $100m to settle 87 lawsuits. Three dioceses ? Spokane, Portland and Tucson ? have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection; grand juries have begun hearings in Arizona, California, Maryland, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Massachusetts. Eight bishops have resigned and more could follow as the revelations mount. And the church faces one monumental case in Los Angeles, where 544 victims may cost the church up to $1.5 billion.