Poor and chaste by court order
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0512310160dec31,1,3826302.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
PORTLAND, OREGON -- A judge ruled Friday that the Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, not its parishes, owns church assets, dealing a major blow to its efforts to protect property from lawsuits filed by alleged victims of priest sex abuse.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris, in two opinions, ruled that church property and real estate is under the control of the archdiocese, not its individual parishes, as attorneys for the archdiocese had argued.
I know this is making it's way through the system to the Supreme Court. But this is hardly encouraging.
In the best case worldly senario, perhaps the 80% of plaintiffs who were once young gay teen boys playing with gay Father, now 40 year old "victims", will offer to sell the churches and schools back to the Church. Unless WalMart makes a better offer.
Perhaps the best case other-wordly senario is that in many places we will be the Church without churches. Offering a lived poverty, and now finally chaste.
posted by Joseph | Saturday, December 31, 2005
1 Comments:
From Joseph...
"By incorporating, there will be a degree of protection of the parish from any legal liabilities incurred by other parishes or the Diocese."
I hope in 100 years this will be the norm then, and the trouble we are having will be a distant memory.
From Papalist...
This is the solution. Of course, with the benefits of incorporation come the downsides. Theoretically, a rogue pastor and other board members could out-vote the bishop and take the parish on a joy ride. Or a bishop could so tightly run the board that the "corporate veil" is pierced and the diocese, after all, is held accountable for parish (mis)deeds. The moral of the story is, to run the Church we need more virtuous men and women--of even average caliber--than few extraordinary-virtuous people.
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