Archdiocese Of Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Archdiocese will sell its administrative headquarters and perhaps other non-parish properties to help pay upcoming settlements of molestation claims against clergymen, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony said Tuesday. Attorneys and other representatives for the alleged sexual abuse victims immediately dismissed Mahony's announcement as an attempt to generate sympathy for the archdiocese, which faces more than 500 molestation cases.

Citing an alleged misrepresentation by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, a judge ruled Wednesday that four people can seek punitive damages against the Los Angeles Archdiocese for failing to protect them from a priest they accused of sexual abuse. The ruling, the first of its kind in the Los Angeles clergy sexual abuse scandal, could increase pressure on the archdiocese to reach a settlement with its accusers.

After more than four years of negotiation, pressure is mounting fast to settle some 500 claims that the Los Angeles Archdiocese failed to protect children from clergy abuse, before the first trial begins this month. "We know it's soon. We know it's inevitable. The day of reckoning is drawing near," said Jeffrey Anderson, a Minnesota lawyer who represents hundreds of alleged victims of clergy abuse in California and elsewhere.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed Saturday to a $660-million settlement with 508 people who have accused priests of sexual abuse, by far the biggest payout in the child molestation scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church nationwide. "Some of the victims have waited more than five decades for a chance at reconciliation and resolution," said Raymond Boucher, the main attorney for the plaintiffs. "This is a down payment on that debt long overdue."

Ten years ago, Anthony Almeida sat on his bed, loaded a single bullet into a Glock .45 and put the barrel in his mouth -- exhausted by the storm of anger, distrust and isolation his life had become. Almeida was a strong, barrel-chested Los Angeles firefighter. But he couldn't relate to people. He was jealous of his wife, combative at work, distant with his children. Watching his daughter and son turn the age he was when Father Clinton Hagenbach began to molest him in the rectory of St.

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.

Inside a tense, packed Los Angeles courtroom Monday, more than a dozen men and women rose slowly and stood, some weeping softly, as they were publicly recognized by the court and others as victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy.

The Los Angeles Archdiocese plans to pay its share of a record clergy sexual abuse settlement by liquidating investments, taking out bank loans and selling up to 50 non-parish properties, including its administrative headquarters, according to diocesan representatives. Many details of the complex financial arrangements were still being worked out, officials said, with the $660-million settlement having been formalized just Monday in a Los Angeles courtroom.

They arrived at the civil courthouse in downtown Los Angeles with their spouses, their parents, girlfriends or siblings. One group of childhood friends, now in their 50s, came together; as girls, they had been molested by the same priest. Some sought an apology, others reconciliation. And some just hoped to vent their outrage and be heard, directly, by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who has headed the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles since 1985.

SANTA BARBARA -- For 43 years, Sister Angela Escalera has lived and often worked out of her order's small convent on this city's east side, helping the area's many poor and undocumented residents with translation, counseling and other needs. Now retired and partly disabled at 69, the nun thought she would live out her days here, in the community where she is still an active volunteer and in the dwelling that was built for the order in 1952.