Parishioners across the sprawling Los Angeles Archdiocese responded with relief, support and a measure of worry Sunday to news that the church will pay $660 million to victims of clergy sexual abuse, the largest payout to date in the nationwide Roman Catholic molestation crisis.
But some also angrily blamed Cardinal Roger M. Mahony for failing to reach a settlement in the local cases years earlier.
"I'm furious," said Robert Sotelo, a retired West Covina electrician, after hearing Mahony celebrate Mass at the downtown Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. "Why did he take so long?"
Mahony, who made a public apology to victims in a news conference Sunday afternoon, did not directly address the legal settlement during the 10 a.m. Mass. A lay church member did, however, offer a brief prayer for victims of clergy abuse, as well as the homeless, prisoners on death row and others.
Among those attending services Sunday at half a dozen Southland Catholic churches, many said the agreement reached Saturday seemed a fair compromise. The settlement, which will give the priests' accusers an average of $1.3 million each, is expected to be formalized in a Los Angeles courtroom today.
"If the church can afford it, and it won't mean that services or churches will go away, then I think most people will be fine with it," parishioner Alan Bigay, 42, said after morning Mass at St. Genevieve Catholic Church in Panorama City.
But Bigay also said he believed the church and its leadership had been at fault for years in attempting to hide the growing abuse problem by quietly moving troubled priests from one parish to another. "I hope they learned their lesson," he said. "Now we know that it's out in the open."
Many other churchgoers expressed sadness and concern for the accusers, many of whom were children at the time of the alleged abuse. "It won't repair their lives but maybe it will help," said Mauricio Gomez, a 27-year-old contractor, after Mass at the cathedral.
Others spoke with compassion of the priests, brothers and other church employees who have been accused in the cases.
Leticia Fernandez, 45, a parishioner at St. Genevieve, where eight former priests have been accused in cases ranging from 1950 to 2003, said she had struggled to reconcile her loyalty to her faith and her disillusionment with the Catholic hierarchy's handling of the issue.
