The first story comes from a June 6 story in the Stockton RecordNet.com. The second comes from a February 3 on the same website by Michael Fitzgerald.

The Diocese of Stockton is considering filing for bankruptcy after years of paying millions of dollars to settle child sex abuse lawsuits.

“We pretty much have depleted the resource funds that we have,” said Sister Terry Davis, a spokeswoman for the diocese that oversees Catholic parishes in San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Calaveras and Tuolumne counties.

“And at this point, everything is on the table for consideration,” she said.

Talk of bankruptcy surfaced during negotiations of a lawsuit that was settled Monday for $1.75 million involving notorious defrocked priest Oliver O’Grady.

The plaintiff in the case, known as John J.S. Doe, filed suit in 2009 in Stanislaus County Superior Court. He was a victim of O’Grady in the 1980s, according to the diocese.

O’Grady, who has admitted to sexually abusing 25 children, has left a path of legal claims against the diocese since being criminally convicted in 1993 for molesting two Turlock brothers.

The diocese paid $7 million to the brothers, John and James Howard, in a subsequent civil suit and millions more in settling complaints that followed.

Davis said the diocese is not disclosing the total amount of damages the diocese has paid in settling sex abuse cases at this time….

To read entire bankruptcy story, click here.

 

Mahony the very rot at core of Church

By Michael Fitzgerald

In my time, I have met killers, swindlers, perverts, corrupt politicians and all manner of toads. How ironic I met one of the worst on an altar.

I was a Catholic student and altar boy who served high Mass in Annunciation Cathedral with then-Bishop Roger Mahony. Oh, the majesty! The spiritual authority!

Mahony, retired head of the Diocese of Los Angeles, was stripped of any administrative and public church duties last week. Newly released Catholic sex abuse files show His Excellency covered for molesters and lied like a rug.

Mahony was bishop of Stockton from 1980 to 1985. Years during which omnivorous hyenas such as Father Oliver O’Grady were using Stockton diocese children for sex toys.

When foot-dragging lay authorities finally investigated O’Grady, wide-eyed Mahony said he had no idea O’Grady was a pedophile – though the diocese had a sub secreto confidential personnel file on him as thick as a phone book.

Mahony knew. He knew O’Grady had molested children in Lodi. So he transferred him to Presentation Parish in Stockton. He turned that abomination loose here.

In 1984, O’Grady confessed to his counselor that he’d had sex with yet another child (in reality, he was molesting a host of others with a freakish appetite). The counselor, doing what Mahony lacked the moral fiber to do, turned him in.

Stockton police investigated. They had the goods on O’Grady. But the genuflecting saps dropped the case after Mahony promised to keep O’Grady away from children.

So Mahony transferred O’Grady to San Andreas. No children there, right?

Just as O’Grady’s outrages were becoming undeniable, Mahony was promoted to bishop of Los Angeles. He got away. His last order of business was to come back for O’Grady’s trial in Stockton and lie on the stand….

To read entire Fitzgerald piece, click here.