The unfathomable $660 million going to clergy abuse victims in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles just conjures if-only thoughts in my mind. Sort of the same if-only thoughts if we had not started a war in Iraq and therefore had $12 billion per month to spend domestically on education, health care and rebuilding our cities.Mistakes and faulty judgment at the very top have led to massive unintended consequences an untold trail of victims, real innocent human beings. Leaders could have cut the losses much earlier by decisive action. Instead, things soared out of control in epic disaster.It seems to have taken many years to finally get this settlement for some 508 people who came forward with legitimate accounts of being taken advantage of sexually by priests going back seven decades. That doesnt count how many victims died in that time taking their untold stories to the grave. On Monday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Haley Fromholz approved the worked-out settlement between victims and the archdiocese led by Cardinal Roger Mahony and the most populous archdiocese in the U.S. It is the largest settlement to date for abuses, far exceeding the $85 million paid out in the Archdiocese of Boston to compensate 552 victims, announced in 2003. Each victim stands to receive an average of $1.3 million. That comes after five years of negotiations, with attorneys, of course, coming out handsomely, taking 40 percent.Mahony has led the diocese for 22 years and must be held accountable for years of allowing abuses to go on. You can look for growing pressure for him to resign or be reassigned by the Vatican in the same way Boston Cardinal Bernard Law became the first American bishop asked by the pope to give up his seat. After Law surrendered his post in December 2002, he was assigned to new duties in Rome. Victims of abuse had said Law should have gone to jail. MSNBC reported Monday that abuse victims in the L. A. archdiocese were upset that leaders of the archdiocese, including Mahoney, did not show up in court to acknowledge under oath what had happened to them and others over the past 70 years. Many victims accuse Mahony of having swept the abuse problem under the rug by transferring accused priests from parish to parish. The archbishop on Sunday made this statement of apology: There really is no way to go back and give them that innocence that was taken from them. The only thing I wish I could give the victims I cannot. Once again, I apologize to anyone who has been offended, who has been abused. I should not have happened and should not happen again.The new settlements take the totals to more than $2 billion in sexual abuse payouts to victims across the American Catholic landscape. Of course, for at least 20 years, we have seen individual priests abuse cases dealt with. Yet, few viewed it as the proverbial tip of the iceberg until the litany of cases reached critical mass, until the Boston Globe documented how horrendous it was and until groups like the SNAP Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and related groups pressed for justice. That such abuses could be so ubiquitous in dioceses from coast to coast and across so many decades begs questions about human weakness and temptation and about some insidious, underground communications among clergy of what could be gotten away with through the authoritative power of the priesthood.Whats interesting is seeing how Mahony and others try to quell the concerns of the massive flock as to the economic impact of the payouts. The Associated Press quoted Mahony that they would not have an impact on the archdioceses core ministry, but that the church would have to sell buildings, use some of its invested funds and borrow money. Under terms of the settlement, the archdiocese will pay $250 million, insurance carriers are to pay $227 millions and religious order pay $60 million, while the rest ($123 million) comes from litigation with religious orders that chose not to participate in the deal, the AP said. For those 80 to 100 cases tied to non-participating religious orders, the archdiocese pledges a resolution within five years. Until now, the Los Angeles Archdiocese had settled 86 claims and gave out more than $114 million to victims. That so much abuse went on for so many decades in so many dioceses led by so many bishops who should have had the oversight and authority to intercede speaks volumes about the flaws in human behavior — both by the abusers and their superiors. Safeguards may largely be in place now. But from what we have seen in such divergent inhumanities as the Holocaust to priest pedophilia, heinous and sordid people have a way of abusively feasting on others while others look away. Surely Cardinal Mahony cannot feasibly last in his post through the recovery of the Los Angeles Archdiocese from the shame and costly consequences.

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