In the News (November 2024)

LA archdiocese must pay $880M to abuse survivors

The Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest, agreed in October to pay $880 million to 1,353 survivors of sexual abuse by clergy and other individuals associated with the church to settle lawsuits. It’s the highest single payout by a diocese and brings Los Angeles’ cumulative total to over $1.5 billion.

“I am sorry for every one of these incidents, from the bottom of my heart,” Archbishop José Gomez said in a statement. The previous high was a $660 million settlement in 2007 that affected 508 survivors, Terence McKiernan of BishopAccountability.org told the New York Times.

“There are a lot more dominoes in California to come down,” McKiernan said, referring to other dioceses that have not settled or have protected themselves by filing for bankruptcy.

Gomez said the new settlement would be paid through “reserves, investments and loans, along with other archdiocesan assets and payments that will be made by religious orders and others named in the litigation.” He said donations to parishes, schools and specific mission campaigns would not be used.

A 2019 law opened a three-year window for revival of claims previously barred by statutes of limitation. “We have clients who are in their 60s and 70s who were never able to bring a case before,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Morgan Stewart, adding that a key concern was ensuring that a settlement was one that the archdiocese could pay without going bankrupt and delaying payments to survivors for years.

The archdiocese has over 4 million Catholics and nearly 300 parishes.

SBC to sell Nashville HQ to defray sex-abuse costs

An investigation into how leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have dealt with sexual abuse by clergy has cost more than $12 million over the past three years, causing the nation’s largest Protestant denomination to put its Nashville, Tenn., headquarters up for sale, the SBC’s Executive Committee announced Sept. 17.

The expenditures, which include $3 million spent fending off a lawsuit filed by a former SBC president, have led the committee to spend down its reserves in what its auditors have called an unsustainable manner.

Gen Z women losing religion, finding politics

After decades of men leading the way in becoming “Nones,” or religiously unaffiliated, young women are now taking up that charge. According to PRRI, nonreligious Gen Z women outnumber nonreligious Gen Z men, 39 percent to 31 percent.

More than 60 percent of Gen Z adults (those born between the late 1990s and early 2010s) who had left organized religion said they did so in part because of its poor treatment of LGBTQ individuals.

As Gen Z women are leaving religion at higher rates than young men, they’re also not going quietly. They’re channeling their values into political action. With the millennial generation, women first closed the gender gap in political engagement, achieving parity with men. With Gen Z, though, a reverse gender gap has appeared in which young women now surpass young men’s political involvement, according to political scientist and PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman.

“For a lot of Gen Z women, the current intermingling of religion and politics on the political right is very unappealing because they’re more progressive on many issues, including support for LGBTQ rights and abortion rights,” Deckman said. “I think many young women see the church or organized religion as being — if not hostile, then certainly not supportive of their political values.”

Brain damage linked to increased fundamentalism

A new study suggests that specific networks in the brain, when damaged, may influence the likelihood of developing religious fundamentalism.

By analyzing patients with focal brain lesions, researchers found that damage to a particular network of brain regions was associated with higher levels of fundamentalist beliefs. This finding provides new insight into the potential neural basis of religious fundamentalism, which has long been studied in psychology but less so in neuroscience.

Prior research suggested that damage to the prefrontal cortex could increase fundamentalist attitudes, but this work was limited to small sample sizes and focused only on one part of the brain. The authors of the study hypothesized that instead of a single brain region being responsible, religious fundamentalism might arise from damage to a distributed network of connected brain regions.

The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Calif. sues hospital for denying ER abortion

In February, Dr. Anna Nusslock, 36, went to the nearest emergency room at Providence St. Joseph Hospital after her water broke just 15 weeks into pregnancy. Doctors said one of the twins she was carrying would not survive and the other had almost no chance. They said that if the pregnancy was not terminated, she could face infection, hemorrhaging and threats to her future fertility.

But because fetal heart tones could still be detected, a doctor at the Catholic-affiliated hospital said the institution’s policy prohibited providing abortion unless her life was at risk. After several hours, her husband drove her to the next closest hospital, where she arrived hemorrhaging and passing a blood clot the size of an apple. She expelled one fetus and was rushed into the operating room so the other fetus could be removed.

On Sept. 30, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed suit against the company that operates Providence St. Joseph, charging that the hospital violated a California law requiring hospitals with emergency rooms to provide care to prevent not only death, but “serious injury or illness.”

Officials in the AG’s office say they believe this to be the first lawsuit California has filed against a hospital under the Emergency Services Law, which says hospitals have to provide care “necessary to relieve or eliminate the emergency medical condition.” The attorney general said he was doing so partly because of uncertainty about the fate of a similar federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act or EMTALA, which has become a lightning rod in the national abortion debate.

Judge: Catholic employers can deny fertility care

A federal judge has allowed more than 8,000 Catholic employers nationwide to reject government regulations that protect workers seeking abortions and fertility care.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor, of Bismarck, N.D., granted a preliminary injunction on Sept. 23, ruling that the Catholic Benefits Association and the Diocese of Bismarck were likely to succeed in proving that a final rule adopted by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in April violated their freedom of religion. The regulations are meant to enforce the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. The act passed with widespread bipartisan support in December 2022. It was widely considered a victory for women who are low-wage workers and have routinely been denied accommodations for everything from time off for medical appointments to the ability to sit or stand on the job. But controversy ensued when the EEOC adopted an expansive view of conditions related to pregnancy and childbirth that required accommodations, including for abortion, fertility treatment and birth control. While the rule includes an exemption for religious employers, it says determinations must be made on a case-by-case basis.

Okla.’s Walters wants $6M for bibles in classrooms

Oklahoma state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters called Sept. 19 for another $3 million to provide a bible in every public school classroom.

Walters said during the monthly meeting of the Oklahoma State Board of Education that the funds would be coupled with $3 million from last year for a total of $6 million to provide bibles for public schools throughout Oklahoma.

He said he wanted to purchase New King James Version editions that were free from commentary, although he noted it would be fine if the books included other key historical documents, such as the U.S. Constitution.

Walters said a specific allocation to buy bibles would be a “significant step” in ensuring that Oklahoma was not allowing the left to “censor” American history.

“Adherence to this mandate is compulsory,” Walters’ letter to the school districts said. “Immediate and strict compliance is expected.”

The directive prompted at least a dozen of the state’s largest districts to announce they have no intention of altering their curriculum to incorporate the order.

Judge blocks Wisconsin clergy abuse review

Court documents tied to sexual abuse by Archdiocese of Milwaukee clergy and laypersons will remain sealed, ruled U.S. Bankruptcy Judge G. Michael Halfenger, who oversaw the archdiocese’s 2011 bankruptcy filing. Halfenger ruled in October against allowing access to documents sealed in the filing.

The request was made by state Attorney General Josh Kaul as part of the Department of Justice’s Clergy and Faith Leader Abuse Initiative launched in 2021. Halfenger said the agency failed to make a valid case to revisit the bankruptcy decision and did not provide a sufficient plan to notify abuse survivors of its request for access to sealed records.

Kaul argued that the archdiocese had not voluntarily provided records sought by the DOJ and wouldn’t be released publicly. The DOJ motion sought to reopen the case that closed in 2016 and resulted in a $21 million settlement with over 300 survivors.

According to Halfenger, over 580 claims were filed by survivors, and 550 of those remain under permanent seal. He called the magnitude of the state’s request “staggering . . . without even considering the substantial logistical hurdles that would need to be cleared.”

Kaul argued that credible claims that weren’t part of the settlement meant abusers could escape justice to the detriment of some survivors. The bankruptcy filings would provide a “unique opportunity to corroborate,” he said.

Ohio school rescinds religious release policy

The Westerville (Ohio) City School District has rescinded a policy that allows absences for religious instruction during the school day.    

In a 4-0 vote, with one abstention, the Westerville School Board voted to halt the practice, with members saying previously that pulling students from the school day was a disruption and distraction for all students.

Before the Sept. 30 vote, a bible-based education program called LifeWise Academy took about 300 Westerville Elementary School students out of recess and lunch once a week for religious instruction. It was the only religious education-based group operating in the Westerville School District and had been in the district for two years.

“This isn’t about religion,” Westerville parent Jaclyn Fraley said. “This isn’t about one religious group against another religious group, believers versus nonbelievers. This is about having our students united together during the school day, learning from our educators for the entire school day.”