MJS: SNAP's lead lawyer is the "unlikely millionaire"

Anderson, 63, is an unlikely millionaire whose own story of failure and redemption - and of abuse in his own family - informs his life and work.

A recovering alcoholic and college dropout who once flunked out of law school (he disliked its "arcane" rules about attendance), Anderson honed his outrage in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s.

Anderson espouses a deep spirituality, born of his recovery from alcoholism, that draws from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and other traditions.

"I'm a deist, I believe in a higher power, in God, and it's a very important part of my life," he said.

A measure of his prominence, and political contributions, can be found in an out-of-the-way corridor of his two-story offices. There, framed photographs of Anderson and his family with presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama share space with legal accolades and a note from then-California Gov. Gray Davis thanking Anderson for his work in helping pass legislation that made it easier for sex abuse victims to bring their cases in court.

Anderson won't discuss compensation, except to say that contingencies range from 25% to 40% of judgments. He claims not to know how many cases he has pending or how much he's earned for victims over the years, though it's been estimated by some as high as $60 million.

His single largest verdict was $30 million, in the 1998 case of Father Oliver O'Grady, the California priest whose crimes were detailed in the 2006 Academy Award-nominated documentary "Deliver us From Evil." The judgment was later reduced to about $7 million.

He denies any anti-Catholic sentiment - he's pursued cases against many denominations, he says. But litigation, Anderson insists, has been the only way to get the church to divulge its secrets and begin to reform itself.

"All I want them to do is clean it up. This isn't about their theology. It isn't about any agenda that was ever anti-Catholic," he said. "It's all about their failures to protect the kids, and their decisions to protect themselves at the great peril of the kids."

MJS did a big writeup SNAP's Jeff Anderson.

He is campaigning right now to remove statute of limitations against any dioceses or other Catholic institutions(which would not apply to public schools which statistically speaking shelter more abusers than any Catholic diocese).  That's his goal in life.  That's exactly what this interview is all about.  The media just loves this guy too.  Not seen in the questioning is how much is enough?  If you could take every possession in the archdiocese, how much would you leave for those of us peasants who actually built these institutions in the first place. 

We've said here before SNAP started out on the right foot(read the whole article, it is worth your consideration), but unfortunately that man had two left feet.  Since his goal is to actually destroy the Catholic Church, obviously he's taking advantage of those coming to him to accomplish his own personal agenda.  Victims deserve justice, but "justice" to Anderson is destruction of every parish that worships Jesus Christ, and every school that teaches He is present in every tabernacle of the world.  He sees no good being done by the Church, only the evil.

Catholic League took out an ad in MJS to issue a response.  Pretty telling that they had to take out an ad and they wouldn't run it as an op-ed.

Left in the midst of all this is a group of victims that do deserve a just response from the archdiocese.  That includes admissions of the wrongs, the discipline of the guilty, and proof of corrective steps being taken.  In bizarre fashion there are still those in the archdiocese who laud Abp. Weakland and Bp. Sklba as some heroes despite their guilt.  What a terrible reality that the archdiocesan newspaper did a tribute to Bp. Sklba during this mess.  THAT is not a just response.