LA Archdiocese to sell headquarters

Well, we knew this was coming. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles said yesterday it needs to sell up to 50 properties, including its Wilshire headquarters to fund at least $250 million of that $660 million settlement with alleged sexual abuse victims (insurers and religious order pick up the rest). From the LA Times:

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and others have said the archdiocese, which drained its litigation reserve fund in payouts for a partial clergy-abuse settlement in December, will try to avoid harming “essential ministries” and does not plan to sell any parish or school properties.

Still, the archdiocese, the most populous in the country, “will have to be a much leaner operation than it is now,” church attorney J. Michael Hennigan said.

Sounds a bit like the problems facing the news business, except, of course, for the sexual perversion.