Are You Too Moral to be Catholic?

Are You Too Moral to be Catholic?

Lunch time on May 4, 1992, Coach Steve began the first day of golf on the grassy playground of the Catholic school, De LaSalle in Granada Hills, California. My wife and I were at lunch at that school as teachers.

One of our sons at De LaSalle, Lennie finished hitting a golf ball across the green and handed the golf club to his best friend. His friend took a swing but Lennie was too close behind his friend and the back swing of the golf club sliced through Lennie’s ear and caused permanent brain damage. Lennie’s 9 year old brother Jordan, also at lunch. saw the growing gathering around Lennie who lay unconscious on the grass, bleeding from his head and ear.

Jordan ran to the teacher’s lunchroom and banged on the door resisting the effort of the nun trying to stop him and shouting for his mother. Kathy rushed to the field to find that paper towels were being applied to Lennie’s ear but no call had been made for an ambulance and no one had notified the office.

Kathy told Jordan that he should find and tell me that we need to drive Lennie to the hospital now and to get the car. We put him in the back seat and drove him to emergency at the closest hospital.

Emergency personnel quickly got Lennie into surgery to sew his ear back on and did tests to find out the extent of his injuries.

Lennie had tremendous pain and equilibrium issues often vomiting and having periods of delirium from his injuries. It was horrible to watch the slow progress. Kathy and I felt helpless.

It was about 2 months until Lennie was able to walk without falling. It took more than a solid year for Lennie to recover as much as he would be able to. He never fully recovered. Permanent damage took it’s toll and we all had to adjust to it.

Father Mike

Lennie was an altar boy at the church attached to the school and he looked up to Father Mike as his spiritual mentor. Our expectation was that Father Mike would come to comfort Lennie and rally the Church community around this awful accident.

We had thought that, like the old movies we grew up with, that the church would be a great comfort to our family and we would have a loving outpouring of caring support to get us through this terrible time. We expected Christian support. Support never came.

Father Mike never visited Lennie during his stay in the hospital nor did he visit during his recovery at home. There was no support from the church, clergy or church members.

One week after the accident, both Kathy, who had over 25 years as a highly respected and gifted Catholic school teacher and I, as a first year computer teacher, were called in to see Father Mike. He would not look at us. He told us that our contracts would not be renewed as teachers at the school. He was cold, distant and, although he knew our situation, Father Mike showed us no compassion.

We didn’t understand. We had not done anything wrong. We just got married in February and Kathy’s mother came to live with us as her health was failing. We had taken in people who needed help and we were responsible for supporting them and our 11 children – most of whom have handicaps. We asked if there was any change we could make to alter this decision that seemed to come out of nowhere.

Father Mike stood, stone-faced while he told us and, despite our questions as to why we were being punished, would not answer. There was no apology for Lennie’s accident, no compassion for leaving us destitute, no evidence that we were talking to a man of Christ.

We left, stunned. We were confused. We were scared. What could we do now?

At the time, we had no thought of suing – as far as we were concerned, it was an accident. It was only when Lennie’s caseworker, since we were guardians, told us we had to sue or the state would remove him from our care and take over the lawsuit on Lennie’s behalf that we realized we would have to pursue a lawsuit for Lennie.

It wasn’t God that hardened Father Mike's heart against our family- Someone Kathy trusted told her it was the Los Angeles Archdiocese. We had no idea at the time that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles instructed Father Mike to end our contracts so that we would be easier to manipulate as impoverished and desperate litigants in the lawsuit we would have to file.

Their strategy appeared to rely on the idea that a family scrambling to survive won't be able to hang on for a fair settlement. It looked like the Archdiocese decided to economically cripple us as it would be cheaper for them if we grabbed a lower settlement offer since driving us into poverty would make us desperate.

The Lawyers

The Archdiocese plan nearly succeeded. Lennie’s first attorney was looking for a quick settlement of about $120,000 but a friend said that we needed a second opinion and recommended the top law firm of Masry and Vittitoe

.

Masry presented a compelling case for a much higher settlement. The firm did research. They had tests done. They uncovered 36 code and procedure violations that made the Catholic school unmistakably responsible for the accident.

One medical brain scan clearly showed the path of the damage from golf club strike through Lennie’s brain not only rendering him stuck at the mental and emotional age of 12 the rest of his life but uncovered the reason he was deaf in his left ear despite no physical damage to the inner ear itself.

Due to brain damage, he was deaf in his left ear, unable to transfer the spoken word into written notes and unable to make clear thought-through decisions to manage his life by himself. He suffers extreme anxiety and medication is ineffective. The test determined he would never be able to control his impulses.

During one deposition, the numerous Catholic Church lawyers had been presented the irrefutable and devastating evidence and scope of Lennie’s injuries.

In a tactic designed to break Lennie’s will to pursue a proper settlement, one of the lawyers took aim at Lennie directly. Looking directly into his eyes and in a mocking tone, she cruelly asked Lennie what he is going to do with the money he gets from that ‘little scratch on his ear’?

At another deposition, Coach Steve was apparently directed to lie about how well Lennie functioned before the accident. Coach Steve behaved as if he had been directed to protect his job as well as the Church.

The Archdiocese dragged out the lawsuit for 5 long, chaotic and difficult years.

Kathy tried to get work at another Catholic school. After all, she was a well-respected and sought after teacher with 25 years of exceptional service in the Catholic School community. A close friend told her that she was not going to be able to get another job at a Catholic School because the Archdiocese had blacklisted her. According to her friend, I too, was blacklisted.

I decided to write a short expose about it and you can find it on Amazon here: Are You Too Moral to be Catholic?