A Federal bankruptcy judge in an Oregon case has ruled that parish property belongs to the Portland Archdiocese, adding to the possibility that some of that property will have to be liquidated to pay abuse victims.
A Federal bankruptcy judge in an Oregon case has ruled that parish property belongs to the Portland Archdiocese, adding to the possibility that some of that property will have to be liquidated to pay abuse victims.
Does this ruling now potentially put the diocese in conflict with some provision of Canon Law? Somewhere I read the assets of a particular parish belong to the parish (perhaps this is in relationship to the fiasco in St. Louis). Your resident canon lawyer might have fodder for a post now, if he hasn't covered this ground already.
It's a shame this case wasn't handled as well and as amicably as the one here in Tucson.
Not to ignore the shameful acts of homosexual priests having their way with teenage boys from Catholic families which had been taught to trust their parish priest no matter what, but...
...this sure looks to me like good old American anti-Catholicism, with roots as old as the presence of Europeans in Massachussetts, is now actually going to shut down some Catholic parishes, and I don't like it a bit.
Doug Barber - No, MA is not going to shut down a single parish. They're going to take the buildings away, the cars away, the property of all types away. The decision to shut down the parish will be the bishop's and his alone. On Sunday, the priest should gather the flock and they should celebrate the mass with whatever they have, wherever they can gather. If nowhere else, I suggest the steps of their former church.
The priest can suggest digging deep for rent money for a hall while the parish regroups and starts the hard journey to buying new property to replace the old so thoughtlessly squandered by a bunch of perverts but the parish endures so long as the faithful remain and the bishop does not suppress them.
I have lived and prayed in parishes without their own property for decades. That happens to Eastern Catholics more frequently than Western ones but there's no exclusivity about it.