Meet the Southern California Lawyer Shaking Up the Catholic Church
Timothy Busch, a philanthropist and attorney who runs his own law firm and foundation in Orange County, made news this week for his backing of a high-profile letter sent to the Vatican.
August 29, 2018 at 06:34 PM
5 minute read
The Catholic Church was sent into a tailspin on Aug. 26 as Pope Francis wrapped up the final days of a trip to Ireland.
In an 11-page letter, former Vatican diplomat Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò accused the Pope, along with dozens of other high-ranking church officials, of covering up sexual abuse allegations against Thomas McCarrick, a former cardinal and archbishop of Washington who resigned in late July.
But before Viganò published his letter, he reportedly shared his plan two weeks prior with attorney Timothy Busch, a founder and name partner of estate planning boutique The Busch Firm in Irvine, California, where he also has his own namesake foundation.
“Archbishop Viganò has done us a great service,” Busch recently told The New York Times in an interview. “He decided to come forward because, if he didn't, he realized he would be perpetuating the cover-up.”
Busch told The Times that he did not have advance knowledge that the archbishop would publish his letter on the National Catholic Register, which is a subsidiary of Eternal Word Television Network, a broadcaster where Busch is a member of the board of directors.
A native of Clinton, Michigan, Busch founded his law firm in 1979. The Busch Firm specializes in estate planning, asset protection, real estate, tax and corporate litigation, as well as representation of religious organizations.
In addition to his legal practice, Busch owns his own winery, Trinitas Cellars in Napa, California, and is also the founder and CEO of the Irvine-based hotel development and management company Pacific Hospitality Group LLC. (Trademark records show that Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman does intellectual property work for Trinitas and PHG.)
And while Busch, 63, has been a member of the bar for nearly 30 years, he wrote in an email Wednesday that he doesn't spend much time practicing law these days. Instead, Busch said he dedicates about half his time to “Catholic matters.”
Over the past several decades, Busch has emerged as an influential conservative voice and philanthropist within Catholic circles. Since the 1990s, he has been involved with myriad Catholic organizations across the world and has founded several institutions along the way dedicated to promoting different principles of the church.
In 1992, Busch and his wife, Stephanie, founded the St. Anne School in Laguna Niguel in Orange County and co-founded the JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano roughly a decade later. Alongside the Rev. Robert Spitzer, a Jesuit priest and former president of Gonzaga University, Busch co-founded the Magis Institute, a Garden Grove, California-based nonprofit educational organization that explores the relationship between faith and reason using modern science and technology. And in 2011, Busch and Spitzer co-founded the Irvine-based Napa Institute, which hosts pilgrimages and conferences intended to prepare church leaders for what it calls “the next America.”
But Busch's Catholic mission never strayed too far away from his legal practice.
In March 2014, ahead of the dissolution of Los Angeles-based Brady, Vorwerck, Ryder & Caspino, name partner Michael Caspino and 10 other staffers joined Busch's outfit to form Busch & Caspino. In a July 2014 interview with the Orange County Business Journal, the duo said their mission in the creation of the nearly 30-lawyer firm was to make it the “go-to firm for cases involving Roman Catholic entities nationwide.”
Busch & Caspino, which specialized in corporate real estate and business litigation, estate and tax planning, as well as religious organizations and canon law, had a client list that included JSerra High School, hospitality giant Marriott International Inc. and the archdiocese of both San Francisco and Portland, Oregon. The combination, however, proved to be short-lived.
The firm dissolved in early 2015 as Caspino, who also served as general counsel to the Archdiocese of Orange County, left to become a litigation partner in the Irvine office of Am Law 200 firm Buchalter. (The Busch Firm, according to its website, now has a roster of fewer than 10 lawyers.)
In April 2016, Busch and Viganò were honored by the Pontifical North American College in Rome for their work in the church. Less than a month later, the Busch Family Foundation made a $15 million donation to Catholic University of America—the largest single donation in the school's history—to assist with operations for its business and economics school.
In March 2017, Busch was the host of an exclusive two-day symposium held at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., for Catholic leaders and clergy that also included conservative legal minds such as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, who once worked at K&L Gates predecessor Kirkpatrick and Lockhart.
And, as the Catholic Church faces questions about its future as a result of ongoing sex scandals involving both clergy and lay employees around the world—Jones Day was recently retained to represent one prominent U.S. cardinal—it remains likely that Busch's name will continue to emerge in news reports.
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