Church Sale

Even those charged with being the moral vanguards of society must pay monetary damages for misbehavior. In this vein, Archbishop Sean O’Malley and the Archdiocese of Boston are rightfully selling part of the archdiocese’s Brighton campus and the former Residence of the Archbishop to pay the $85 million settlement it is facing due to the pedophilic abuses of its priests. While this action only monetarily repays the hundreds of men whose innocence was destroyed by unfaithful priests, it is at least a small step toward healing the wounded trust between the archbishop and his faithful. Whereas previous bishops hid the pedophilia problem and ostracized those who sought to call attention to it, O’Malley is to be praised for making the settlement process so transparent.

For decades, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Boston failed to uphold its duty to area Catholics. While the bishops preached the Church’s elaborate doctrines of sexual morality, they disobeyed the most basic ones. They allowed pedophilic priests to continually prey on Boston’s boys—shuffling offending priests from parish to parish, as if that would cure them. Thankfully, the coming forward of victims and additional outside pressure, has finally brought this cycle of abuse to light and has caused the Church to put its practice back in line with its preaching.

The Boston Catholic Church owes much to the many men who were abused by priests, and it is fortunate that the payment did not come at the expense of the wonderful programs the Church runs in the city. The emergency shelters, food pantries, foster care services, mental-health counseling and other ministries that the archdiocese supplies help support Boston’s needy. The archbishop’s commitment to make the payment from the proceeds of the property sale—instead of parish offerings, funds from the Annual Catholic Appeal or the continuing capital campaigns—demonstrates the correct willingness to bring about justice while not causing additional harm. While others might have held onto the land and mansion because it was part of the history and majesty of the archdiocese, O’Malley made a laudable hierarchical sacrifice. The sale is still a loss—the property was purchased through the generosity of generations of working-class Catholics—but the loss of the programs would have been far greater.

As is particularly true in all land transactions in demographically dense Boston, whoever buys the property from the archdiocese, likely Boston College, may feel pressure to develop it; much of the land, which is between St. John’s Seminary and Commonwealth Ave., remains undeveloped. But the eventual purchaser would help serve the community by preserving some open green space for the residents of the Brighton community.

At last, the archdiocese is accepting responsibility for the damage caused by its priests over the last generation—without cutting services necessary in this one. We can only hope that this new sense of responsibility will prevent abuse in the future.