Over 500 people who claim they were abused by the Catholic Church have finally reached a monetary settlement, according to the lawyer of one of the main plaintiffs in the case. The Record $660 million, tainted by the reason for which it is being paid (one helluva sex scandal), has left many wary of the Catholic Church with even more leaving the church as a whole.

As a former Catholic (I prefer to say I am recovering), all I can say is A-Fucking-Men. You see the Pope preaching about how things have to be and how holy and devout the Catholic clergy are…and this sex scandal just emphasizes how archaic the principles, upon which the church was founded, truly are.

The simple solution would be to let priests get married. Let nuns get married. Let priests be gay if they are gay and let nuns be lesbians. Stifling those sexual urges and denying who you are sexually obviously does not work. Even in history, as we look back at those who were supposed to chaste and virginal, we see Popes with gay lovers, Popes with illegitimate children and all kinds of weird and divergent things from what the church actually preaches. Actions do speak louder than words, and the actions of the priests involved in these sex scandals are screaming for reform in the church.

Just look up the history of Pope Benedict the V, who raped a girl and disappeared with the church treasury before resurfacing again. How about Pope Benedict IX know by age 14 for his wanton ways (he became Pope at age 11)? Then there was Pope Alexander VI, a murderer (who killed his first by age 12) and father to many illegitimate children or his predecessor Innocent VIII, who also had many children and let people “eat favored dishes” during Lent for the right price, even if the church forbade it? It should be noted that for many centuries the running joke (which really wasn’t much of a joke, but more of a truth) was that Rome was run by bastards since so many of the men were the illegitimate children of Popes and Vatican clergy.

The largest plaintiff in this case is the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. This Archdiocese is also the largest diocese in the United States. On Monday, the plaintiffs in this case, including the Archdiocese of L.A. will be holding a news conference and releasing a statement on the settlement. During this time, the true value of the settlement will become public knowledge. At this time, it is not known how accurate that figure is, though someone close to the case, who spoke on conditions of anonymity is claiming an amount in the vicinity of $660 million. This leaves well over a million dollars for each of the defendants in this case. This will also make the settlement by far the largest payout in the Catholic Church’s tumultuous history.

On CNN’s website information from the regional director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is available. The director, Mary Grant, had this to say in relation to any settlement, of which they had not heard about as of yet: “No matter what happens, no resolution, guilty verdict or settlement magically takes away the pain of having been raped or molested by Catholic priests in this archdiocese.”

The Catholic Church sex scandal hit the scene big time in 2002. Past settlements have been large, but none have ever been this big. The following dioceses offered these amounts in their subsequent plea deals:

Diocese of Orange, California – $100 Million
Diocese of Boston – $84 Million
Diocese of Covington, Kentucky – $84 Million
Diocese of Portland, Oregon – $52 Million
Diocese of Spokane, Washington – $48 Million

The following dioceses filed for bankruptcy protection due to the large amounts of abuse claims: Tucson, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Davenport, Iowa, and San Diego, California.

Thus far, in the Los Angeles area, $114 million has already been paid so far, though none have been settled officially in a court setting, until now. In fact, when this latest lawsuit came about, the church was attempting to settle a $60 million settlement between 45 individuals. To help pay for the swarm of over 500 complaints, the Archdiocese is considering selling 50+ non-essential church owned buildings and getting rid of the high-rise administrative building it has in Los Angeles, according to Cardinal Roger Mahony. At this point, there are so many plaintiffs that Los Angeles was looking at as many as 15 separate trials.

Again, I implore the Catholic Church to consider reformation for the betterment of the church by allowing priests to marry and have life partners if they are gay, though I doubt this will come under the current Pope. With the Nazi-esque Joseph Ratzinger holding the Papal mitt, no good can possibly come about. With him declaring those Christians who are non-Catholic as wounded, the prospect of a married or (especially) a gay priest is a blasphemy to his church. As a result, the payments and the abuse will continue until something truly is done about this horrible situation, and I don’t mean by paying exorbitant amounts of cash to fix a problem that’s forever going to be broken unless something isn’t done to truly fix it.

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