c. 2007 Religion News Service

Archdiocese of Los Angeles Reaches Largest Settlement in Abuse Cases

(RNS) The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has reached a landmark $660 million settlement with 508 alleged victims of sexual abuse, the largest such payment thus far in the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal.

The settlement was approved by a California judge on Monday (July 16) and follows an agreement by the archdiocese last December to pay $60 million to settle 45 abuse claims made against its clergy.

Collectively, the sex abuse scandal has cost the U.S. Catholic Church about $2 billion since 1950.

Archbishop of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony said funding for the settlement will be shared by the archdiocese, insurance companies, several religious orders and other parties.

The archdiocese is expected to pay $250 million of the total settlement, which Mahony said would require the selling of “nonessential properties,” not parish properties or schools.

The settlement was reached Saturday, days before the start of a trial in which the cardinal was expected to be required to testify.

Mahony said he had met “with many, many victims” individually. He became more determined to settle the cases as he listened to their stories.

“I said, your life I wish were like a VHS tape where we could put that in, press rewind, delete these years of misery and difficulty and start over when you were young and just before this happened,” he said.

Ray Boucher, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement that the settlement “should bring closure and healing to the hundreds of victims who have been waiting more than five years for this moment.”

Mary Grant, Western regional director for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the settlement can be a “healthy validation” of victims but the church hierarchy should get no credit for it.

“Settlements in no way signify `reform’ or `change’ by church officials,” said Grant, who is among the plaintiffs. “When bishops settle child sex abuse cases, it is almost always to spare themselves court appearances, tough questions and the risk of perjury charges.’

_ Adelle M. Banks

Louisiana Moves to Restrict Abortion

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (RNS) _ Gov. Kathleen Blanco has signed into law two bills banning a controversial form of late-term abortions, making Louisiana the first state outlaw the procedure after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal ban in April.

Under two bills, which went into effect Friday (July 13), anyone convicted of performing “a partial birth abortion … thereby kills a human fetus” and can be imprisoned for one to 10 years, fined from $10,000 to $100,000, or both. Women who have the procedure will not be subjected to fines or jail time under the new laws.

A doctor charged with the crime can seek a hearing before the State Board of Medical Examiners to determine whether the procedure was necessary to save the mother’s life, an exemption under the new laws.

A lawsuit can be filed against someone who performs the procedure. The law says those who can file a “wrongful death” or injury lawsuit are the biological father of the fetus, unless his “criminal conduct” caused the pregnancy, as in a rape; the mother of the fetus, unless she was an adult and consented to the procedure; or the mother’s guardians, if the mother was a minor at the time _ unless the parents consented to the abortion.

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that restricting the procedure, usually performed in the late stages of pregnancy, is legal. Louisiana enacted a state ban on the procedure in 1997, but a federal court threw it out in 1999. So-called “partial-birth abortions” account for roughly 3 percent of the 11,000-plus abortions performed in Louisiana each year.

Earlier this month, Blanco signed into law a bill that requires a woman to be told before an abortion that a fetus can feel pain. The bill also requires that a woman be told of the availability of anesthesia that would “eliminate or alleviate organic pain to the unborn child.”

That law takes effect Aug. 15.

_ Ed Anderson and Robert Travis Scott

Sick Sacred Hindu Bull Shouldn’t Be Slaughtered, British Judge Rules

LONDON (RNS) A sacred Hindu bull honored by a temple in Wales but slated to be killed because it tested positive for bovine tuberculosis was reprieved by a British judge Monday.

The bull, named Shambo, is one of a herd of 35 cattle owned by a Hindu temple, the Community of the Many Names of God, in southern Wales.

Shambo tested positive for bovine TB in April; in May the Welsh Assembly ruled he must be slaughtered in accordance with government rules on sick livestock.

But many Hindus, for whom cattle are sacred, contested the ruling, arguing the slaughter would breach the European Convention of Human Rights, which guarantees “freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.”

Their lawyer, David Anderson, told the court that slaughtering Shambo would be “a violation of deeply held religious views.”

Judge Gary Hickinbottom of the High Court at Cardiff said that though it’s “very likely” Shambo was infected, animals had been cured of TB in the past and the risk to human beings was “particularly small.”

The Welsh Assembly is appealing against the judge’s ruling, which was greeted with appreciation by the Hindu Forum of Britain. The forum’s president,Ishwer Taylor, said he believes that the process of testing for bovine TB and treating it needed to be re-evaluated “so as to prevent the needless slaughter of cattle.”

_ Robert Nowell

Quote of the Day: Mennonite Music Professor Ken Nafziger

(RNS) “The people I speak with are my fellow human beings. The people I sing with are my family.”

_ Ken Nafziger, music professor at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia, who led a selection of a cappella spirituals at a recent symposium at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. He was quoted by The Christian Chronicle.

DSB/LF END RNS