Posted on 08/30/2005 7:57:24 PM PDT by Salvation
Spokane, Aug. 30, 2005 (CNA) - Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane, Washington has announced that his diocese will appeal a federal court ruling which, on Friday, declared all parishes in the diocese assets which can be liquidated to pay for claims by alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests.
Bishop Skylstad, who also holds the post of president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in a statement released from Eastern Europe, where he is currently traveling, that
"The court's decision has national consequences.”
“Its impact”, he said, “will be felt not just by Catholic communities but by many other church communities of any denomination, of any faith expression."
In December of last year, the diocese filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection citing $11.1 million in assets and $83.1 million in liabilities from abuse victims seeking compensation.
Diocesan parishes and schools were not included in that figure as, according to Canon Law, the bishop is only steward of them--the parishes themselves control their own actual assets.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Patricia Williams’ Friday decision however, ignores this fact, opining that civil property laws supersede Church law.
In her decision, Williams wrote, "It is not a violation of the First Amendment to apply federal bankruptcy law to identify and define property of the bankruptcy estate even though the Chapter 11 debtor is a religious organization."
Lawyers for, and supporters of the diocese however, disagree.
Bishop Skylstad wrote that he would "appeal this decision because we have a responsibility not only to victims but to the generations of parishioners ... who have given so generously of themselves" to build up the church in eastern Washington.
William Donahue, president of the Catholic League, called the ruling “outrageous,” saying that “At a minimum, separation of church and state means that sitting judges have no right to make determinations regarding the organizational chart of the Catholic Church. But that is exactly what’s being done.”
“By declaring all diocesan assets fair game for every steeple-chasing lawyer,” he continued, “a green light has been given to plunder the resources of the Catholic Church.”
I will link the previous thread.
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Looks like Donahue has the most brains around!
**William Donahue, president of the Catholic League, called the ruling “outrageous,” saying that “At a minimum, separation of church and state means that sitting judges have no right to make determinations regarding the organizational chart of the Catholic Church. But that is exactly what’s being done.”
“By declaring all diocesan assets fair game for every steeple-chasing lawyer,” he continued, “a green light has been given to plunder the resources of the Catholic Church.”**
This strikes me as a serious violation of the 1st amendment.
There can be no law establishing a state religion or denying free exercise. They are different realms, and one cannot direct the other.
For the same reason that churches historically were able (should be able still?) to provide sanctuary and not be invaded by civil authorities -- the different realms that define religion and civil government -- the government should be prevented from taking church assets.
Also, I would bet that the parishes are incorporated. The priests committed personal crimes, not corporate crimes.
Check out the thread about the Catholic League President, William Donahue. Exactly what he says.
If they don't want bankruptcy law to apply for purposes of determining what is an asset of the estate, they probably shouldn't have filed for Chapter 11 in the first place.
It's my recollection that they could not have had an involuntary petition filed against them.
They invited themselves to this party. It's a little late to be complaining about what is being served. They need to get busy with some serious settlement negotiations. Most plaintiffs prefer cash to property anyway.
Portland Archdiocese Names Parishioners As Defendants In Sex-Abuse Bankruptcy Case
Bankruptcy judge rules parish assets available to victims [Spokane Diocese]
Diocese [Spokane] to appeal decision that parishes can be liquidated; church/state separation
Catholic League president: Church must start playing hardball against victimization
Where is Donohue's thread?
Seems to me that the judge is right.
Let's look at an analogy.
A big corporation, say a car maker, makes cars that it knows will explode in a rear end crash. The crashes start happening, and people's families start being burnt up. The car maker stonewalls. It hides its own internal evidence on the subject. It denies everything, stonewalls, and then finally gets hit with a whopping fine and punitive damages. It's a multi-billion dollar organization, but it claims that only its "Gremlin" division, which has few assets, can be required to pay for the crime. It's "Demon" and "Monster" divisions, both with huge assets, are - according to it - off limits to the judgment, because the presidents in charge of those separate divisions (of the same overall company) are not in the same corporate chain of command.
The company may even wring its hands in a sympathy ploy, that "all those innocent stockholders who did nothing wrong will get hurt". Yes, they will. And none of that would have happened had the company not hid its own data and not put out cars that it knew would be likely to explode.
Alright, now, let's turn back to the Catholic Church.
We Catholics are always so proud, and justly so, about how we are one great Church, reaching back across the sea to Rome and the Vatican.
Our priests molested children, lots of children, and ruined a lot of lines. But for the mercy of God on the poor damaged souls of the young, those children whose experiences of sexual abuse led to a lifetime of sexual obsession may well have been condemned to Hell by what the priests taught them. The Bishops knew. They had the reports. And they kept cycling these priests around. They covered up. They hid it. They allowed the rape of the innocents to go on, and abetted it with their silence.
So NOW, all of a sudden, when the Church is being called to account in the only crude way the law knows how: by hitting the Church for MONEY, all of a sudden we are a bunch of Baptists? All of a sudden we are not one organic unit, but instead a bunch of independent little corporations, completely independent, and therefore it is "unjust" to reach in and liquidate those assets.
Utter nonsense!
Hogwash!
Can the Bishop fire the officials in those organizations? Can the Pope?
Yes.
Then it's one organization, and we should have none of this pathetic dawdling when it comes to paying out money -hard money - for the crimes and sins of our church. Making the Church poor, really poor, as penance for its monstrous sins will not hurt the spiritual quality of the Church at all. Indeed, it may very well HELP it. Trying to erect specious firewalls and hiding assets the same way that the Bishops hid pedophile priests for decades demonstrates the same mentality.
The Church was wrong. Stripping the Church of its worldly assets will be humiliating, but it is the proper penance for mortal sins. The penalties are just, the money should be paid. And if that means the loss of treasured assets, then so be it. The Church is not the building. It is the visible body of God on Earth.
We sing the hymn: "We are not divided, all one body we..."
And it is time we stood by our words.
Note that the lines of responsibility do not stop at the diocese. The Vatican is also responsible, and to the extent the diocese cannot pay, the Vatican should be imposed upon to answer for the crimes of its subalterns.
That is justice. It is moral. It is the correct thing to do.
Whining about money is unseemly.
Suck it up.
Pay.
Restructure the Church so it does not happen again.
And move on.
Seems to me that the judge is right.
Let's look at an analogy.
A big corporation, say a car maker, makes cars that it knows will explode in a rear end crash. The crashes start happening, and people's families start being burnt up. The car maker stonewalls. It hides its own internal evidence on the subject. It denies everything, stonewalls, and then finally gets hit with a whopping fine and punitive damages. It's a multi-billion dollar organization, but it claims that only its "Gremlin" division, which has few assets, can be required to pay for the crime. It's "Demon" and "Monster" divisions, both with huge assets, are - according to it - off limits to the judgment, because the presidents in charge of those separate divisions (of the same overall company) are not in the same corporate chain of command.
The company may even wring its hands in a sympathy ploy, that "all those innocent stockholders who did nothing wrong will get hurt". Yes, they will. And none of that would have happened had the company not hid its own data and not put out cars that it knew would be likely to explode.
Alright, now, let's turn back to the Catholic Church.
We Catholics are always so proud, and justly so, about how we are one great Church, reaching back across the sea to Rome and the Vatican.
Our priests molested children, lots of children, and ruined a lot of lines. But for the mercy of God on the poor damaged souls of the young, those children whose experiences of sexual abuse led to a lifetime of sexual obsession may well have been condemned to Hell by what the priests taught them. The Bishops knew. They had the reports. And they kept cycling these priests around. They covered up. They hid it. They allowed the rape of the innocents to go on, and abetted it with their silence.
So NOW, all of a sudden, when the Church is being called to account in the only crude way the law knows how: by hitting the Church for MONEY, all of a sudden we are a bunch of Baptists? All of a sudden we are not one organic unit, but instead a bunch of independent little corporations, completely independent, and therefore it is "unjust" to reach in and liquidate those assets.
Utter nonsense!
Hogwash!
Can the Bishop fire the officials in those organizations? Can the Pope?
Yes.
Then it's one organization, and we should have none of this pathetic dawdling when it comes to paying out money -hard money - for the crimes and sins of our church. Making the Church poor, really poor, as penance for its monstrous sins will not hurt the spiritual quality of the Church at all. Indeed, it may very well HELP it. Trying to erect specious firewalls and hiding assets the same way that the Bishops hid pedophile priests for decades demonstrates the same mentality.
The Church was wrong. Stripping the Church of its worldly assets will be humiliating, but it is the proper penance for mortal sins. The penalties are just, the money should be paid. And if that means the loss of treasured assets, then so be it. The Church is not the building. It is the visible body of God on Earth.
We sing the hymn: "We are not divided, all one body we..."
And it is time we stood by our words.
Note that the lines of responsibility do not stop at the diocese. The Vatican is also responsible, and to the extent the diocese cannot pay, the Vatican should be imposed upon to answer for the crimes of its subalterns.
That is justice. It is moral. It is the correct thing to do.
Whining about money is unseemly.
Suck it up.
Pay.
Restructure the Church so it does not happen again.
And move on.
**Restructure the Church so it does not happen again. **
Amen to that!
and it's bullshYt, if I may say so.
Be strong, Church!
**this, of course, is exactly what that bright mind, whereever it is, that conceives of theft, evil, deceit and destruction, has wanted all along.**
There you go, talking about the Left again! LOL!
Ha ha, but just what mind do you think is behind the left?
And it really isn't very funny either!
But we know who wins! Have you ever read "That Hideous Strength" by C.S. Lewis? MUST READ. It's fun, at least at the moment, to watch the left go up in flames right before our eyes. The problem is, we all wind up getting burned.
So a judge has ruled that the way the Catholic Church has incorporated itself with regard to the property under its control makes it liable for any and all claims, and can, in fact, dispose of that property to pay such claims ~ is this news?
I live in the Spokane Diocese, so I read through the 57 page decision. Two points stood out. First, the Diocese argued in TWO recent legal proceedings that the Bishop owned parish properties. It violates "judicial estoppel" to argue contrary positions in different cases. Second, all of the incorporation papers, dating back to 1915, plus the property deeds, name the Diocese as owner. Two law professor friends say that this decision will almost certainly NOT be overturned.
Justice is to render to each man what is due him, not to force the innocent to be punished in place of the guilty.
What is being proposed is the most monstrous injustice I have heard of in a very long time.
A former Parochial Vicar at my parish from 20 years ago is among the guilty. He was promptly bounced from the Priesthood when discovered. Why then should his victims be able to come now and demand payment via liquidating our parish and school (thus ruining our entire neighborhood in the process, it being around 65% Catholics, with 75% of the kids at the Catholic school)? The parish and diocese did nothing wrong, nor did the neighborhood. Only the faggot priests is guilty here.
Our priests molested children, lots of children, and ruined a lot of lines.
No, they had sex with adolescents, mostly without distraint, mostly quasi-voluntarily, and only many years after the fact, when it was clear there was money to be had, have the lawsuits started.
So NOW, all of a sudden, when the Church is being called to account in the only crude way the law knows how: by hitting the Church for MONEY, all of a sudden we are a bunch of Baptists? All of a sudden we are not one organic unit, but instead a bunch of independent little corporations, completely independent, and therefore it is "unjust" to reach in and liquidate those assets.
Read Canon Law. Its perfectly clear in there how the Church is financially and organizationally structured. If parishes did not hold their own property, the Pastor and Finance Council could hardly administer it.
The Church is not the building. It is the visible body of God on Earth.
If the Church did not include the building, we would not consecrate the building and celebrate annually the feast of its dedication. The building is Holy, therefore it cannot be given to the dogs.
Making the Church poor, really poor, as penance for its monstrous sins will not hurt the spiritual quality of the Church at all. Indeed, it may very well HELP it.
Liquidating the earthly assets of the Church will destroy it in this country. The Church must have a place to meet for worship, and a place to send her children for a Christian education. These activities cannot occur in the streets.
Canon law of property is inferior to the civil law of property in the nation in which the church is located.
There was a conspiracy of bishops, the leadership of the Church, to protect predatory priests. Crimes were committed and there has been an accounting. The Church cannot defend itself against the public laws by its own internal accounting rules.
This will not destroy the Church in America. It will impoverish it to an extent, and then it will grow back.
Organizations are responsible for the acts of their principals and agents. This is universally true in America, and there is no exception for the Catholic Church.
Nor should there be.
Wrong. Canon law is superior to the civil law, since the spiritual power is above the temporal. "In the case of conflicting laws enacted by the two powers, the civil law prevails" (Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Modern Errors, #42).
I am not a Roman Catholic, but this seems to be a reasonable position. It would also seem that by maintaining such a position, the Roman Catholic Church is conceding that the local parishes have full autonomy over the operation of the local parish. As long a a local parish can 'pay their own way', the diocese cannot force the local parish to do anything or refrain from doing anything.
"Wrong. Canon law is superior to the civil law, since the spiritual power is above the temporal. "In the case of conflicting laws enacted by the two powers, the civil law prevails" (Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Modern Errors, #42)."
Tell that to the judge and the marshalls who will be liquidating Church property to pay the Church's debts.
The lawsuits are ongoing even where there was no such conspiracy. My own diocese is being sued (for $60 million or some outrageous sum) over the actions of a molester committed after he had been forced out of the priesthood, and while he was not employed by the diocese. Is that just?
Crimes were committed and there has been an accounting.
And the verdict is that the infrastructure built by generations of lay Catholics with their blood, sweat, and toil -- lay Catholics who didn't molest anyone -- should be forcibly taken from them and given to lawyers. You call that justice?
Catholics believe in the liberty of the Church from the secular government. It was for this principal that St. Thomas a Becket was martyred.
Until now, the Courts have held that they could not interfere in the Canonical workings of Churches.
There was a conspiracy of bishops, the leadership of the Church, to protect predatory priests.
No, a few priests in certain dioceses covered up this affair.
This will not destroy the Church in America. It will impoverish it to an extent, and then it will grow back.
This is soley your gratutitous and therefore baseless assertion. I'm sure the Africans thought the Church in Carthage would "come back" from the Muslim depredations just as it did from those of the Vandals. Guess what? Its gone! There is no guaranteeing that the utter destruction of God's Vineyard will lead to a new flourishing of Catholicism in this land.
Organizations are responsible for the acts of their principals and agents. This is universally true in America, and there is no exception for the Catholic Church.
Organizations are only responsible for agents under their control. The Catholic Church is heirarchical, not democratic like your false analogy to a shareholder controlled company. In a Corporation, the directors serve at the sufferance of the Shareholders. In the Church, the Bishops serve at the sufferance of the Pope. It is totally wrong to equate the laity and innocent Priests to Shareholders in the case of malfeasance by the Bishops as quasi-Directors. The Laity and Priests do not control the Bishops and the Bishops do not serve at their sufferance. Where there is no control, there can be no liability.
What is being proposed, and what you are agreeing to, is akin to holding employees liable for malfeasance by their management.
In days of old, real Catholic men would have stood down the attempts of Marshalls and Sheriffs to enforce unjust rulings with armed force. Lets see if there are still any out there.
"...should be forcibly taken from them and given to lawyers. You call that justice?"
After trial in open court, the property of the organization which perpetrated and covered up the rape of children may, in some cases, be judicially, legally (not forcibly) taken from that organization, and given to the victims. Lawyers are paid for their services, normally about 1/3 of the proceeds. 2/3rds of the proceeds go to the victims.
The stockholders of Enron, the hardworking employees who trusted the company and put their sweat and toil into building their company: they were not responsible personally for the criminality in the head office. And yet, when the time comes for an accounting, their assets in the company, too, are liquidated and rendered worthless because of the actions of the leadership.
The leadership of the Church led the Church off a cliff. Folks like Cardinal Law covered things up. Was he forced out of the clergy? No.
The loss of property will be painful for the Church.
In order to make sure that the Church does not have to suffer through this again, the Church needs to fundamentally change its structure so that the priests and bishops are under closer supervision.
What cannot work under our system of law is the concept of command without accountability. If the Bishop can command priests of a parish to do something, and remove them if they don't, and the laity of the parish cannot resist the bishop, then parish is, in fact, accountable to the bishop, and efforts to erect a barrier are not availing. The "corporate veil" is pierced routinely when crimes are involved. And it can't be any different for the Church.
The lesson to be learned for the future is that things need to be restructured so that priests and bishops cannot act as they did without continual oversight by the laity who, ultimately, have to bear the burden of seeing their church property lost.
As a final thought, it was the Church itself that resorted to the maneuver of going into bankruptcy court. It could not have been forced there. It went there of its own free will. Having done that, there is no real room to complain that the law of bankruptcy was applied to the Church as it would be to any other corporation or organization that came before the court. There is not a special law for the Catholic Church. Canon law does not prevail over the Bankruptcy Code of the United States in a court of the United States.
"And if at times there appears in the Church something that indicates the weakness of our human nature, it should not be attributed to her juridical constitution, but rather to that regrettable inclination to evil found in each individual, which its Divine Founder permits even at times in the most exalted members of His Mystical Body, for the purpose of testing the virtue of the Shepherds no less than of the flocks, and that all may increase the merit of their Christian faith. For, as We said above, Christ did not wish to exclude sinners from His Church; hence if some of her members are suffering from spiritual maladies, that is no reason why we should lessen our love for the Church, but rather a reason why we should increase our devotion to her members. ... But it cannot be laid to her charge if some members fall, weak or wounded." Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, §66.
If Catholic men in this country bear arms against the authorities executing lawful writs of duly constituted courts, they should be shot like any other criminal who brandishes a weapon in the face of a law enforcement officer pursuing his official duties.
There is no separate law for the Catholic Church in America, and there should not be.
Not good news.
So what will be liquidated then?
Is it like a school district that buys up land NOW, speculating on new schools being built in the FUTURE?
Are these speculative parcels of land puchased by the diocese for FUTURE needs the only thing that can be then liquidated if Catholic parishes and schools are safe? I'm not an attorney, so I really don't know the answer.
In the United States of America, the civil law prevails.
The civil law may not be wise, and in some cases may be evil (to wit: abortion law), but it nevertheless prevails.
Faced with an evil law such as abortion, Catholics have the choice of not performing abortions, or allowing the procedure to be performed on them. They have the right to protest to agitate against abortion politically, and to seek that the laws should be changed. Pope after Pope has sternly condemned abortion. There is no question that, morally, the Pope is correct. There is also no question that, legally, the right to an abortion is the law of the land in the United States, and that this law supersedes the law of the Church. The Church opposes, and Catholics oppose, but they cannot STOP the abortions that are performed.
The truths taught by the Catholic Church are the truths taught by the Catholic Church. Real property situated in the United States is, and ought to be, subject to the laws of property of the United States. We do not step out of the United States and into a foreign country, governed exclusively by its own sovereign laws, when we walk onto the grounds of a Catholic Church. We are still in America, and the Church operating here must abide by the laws of this country. For example, the tax code exempts the Church from having to pay taxes on its religious and charitable operations, but does not exempt from taxation those aspects of the Church which the tax code considers to be operated "For profit". The distinction of what is, and is not, for profit is for the civil authorities of the United States to decide, not for the Church to decide of its own sovereign will. Likewise, the tax authorities, while they may not tax charitable and religious operations of the church, may certainly demand that the Church make a regular accounting of its operations, so that the tax authorities can properly discern that which is taxable and that which is not.
So, too, if a dam is to be built that will flood certain communities, and those properties are to be taken by eminent domain, the fact that there is a Catholic Church sitting in those communities does not bar the government from condemning that land, including the land of the Church, paying for it, building the dam and flooding the valley.
The Church is not above the civil law on matters of property, taxation or the acts of its officials. Priests raped children. They are prosecuted for it. To the extent that there are records of the Church showing their shifting around, the authorities may demand and seize those records in order to enforce the laws protecting children. The rule of law does not end at the Church door.
This shows what happens when pure secularism--ala France--come into power. It is whole hostile to English law going back to Magna carta. Read THAt documents: the very first article guaranteed the rights of the Church. Our first amendment is a reflection of that ancient tradition. The notion that a church is no different from any other corporation is evil.
Again, wehic h is to assume that a Church is no different from any other corporation, and to ignore the existence of the First Amendment. What a weapon for developers/city governmment who wish to get hold of valuable real estate in the hands of a church! Legalism carried to its logical conclusion.
**The notion that a church is no different from any other corporation is evil.**
Thank you!
In California recently, one of our churches (Methodist) argued that under California law that they were the owners of the property. Numerous cases around the country had ruled that the conference (Methodist equivalent of diocese) held title. That was reversed in this case mostly because the local title actually was held in local hands despite a denominational rule that tried to say that the local body would hold the title, but that this was only "in trust" for the denomination."
The courts ruled for the local body. This might provide an offsetting line of argument in Seattle.
To sound an insistent note, if the free exercise clause does not protect a church congregation against such legal looting, then it is meaningless.
The free exercise clause should mean that the church's religion is defined by the entire church and not by the state.
Laws that are evil are not laws but rather satanic fulminations.
Faced with an evil law such as abortion, Catholics have the choice of not performing abortions, or allowing the procedure to be performed on them. They have the right to protest to agitate against abortion politically, and to seek that the laws should be changed. Pope after Pope has sternly condemned abortion. There is no question that, morally, the Pope is correct. There is also no question that, legally, the right to an abortion is the law of the land in the United States, and that this law supersedes the law of the Church. The Church opposes, and Catholics oppose, but they cannot STOP the abortions that are performed.
Sure they can. It is not as if it is a mortal sin to use force to prevent an abortion from occuring, just as it is not a mortal sin to burn down an "Adult Book Store" selling pornography. You are acting as though these are legitimate activities that can be licitly undertaken, like selling groceries or paving driveways.
You are far to deferential to the dictators in black robes. They do not make law, and there certainly cannot be a law that authorizes abortion. It is a simple nullity that no one needs to recognize.
The truths taught by the Catholic Church are the truths taught by the Catholic Church. Real property situated in the United States is, and ought to be, subject to the laws of property of the United States. We do not step out of the United States and into a foreign country, governed exclusively by its own sovereign laws, when we walk onto the grounds of a Catholic Church.
And yet, the Catholic Church is a foreign power, recognized and granted sovereign immunity by the US Government. You do realize that the Church has an embassy in Washington, DC, and the US an ambassador to the Vatican?
Otherwise, why do we fly the flags of a foreign power - the Vatican - in and around our Churches?
The Church should be governed by its own laws. And if a government will not allow that, it is opressing the Church.
The Church is not above the civil law on matters of property, taxation or the acts of its officials.
The Church is exempt from taxation. The Church is also not to be subjected to any governmental control of use of its property for purposes of divine service. The clergy cannot be conscripted. All attempts to the contrary are nullities that breach the free practice of religion guaranteed against the US government and against all of the States.
The free exercise clause ought to recognize that a church is a small society, more like a family than a business. That is one reason James Madison "freedom of conscience" language did not make its way into the constitution, because "religion" in our culture is communitarian and not merely personal.
I find that the freedom from taxation is a natural extension of the "free exercise" clause of the 1st amendment. The state cannot take money given to God and pretend they have upheld the religious intent of the person who gave the money.
Do you concur?
The rule of law ended eons ago. This ruling is a two edged sword. It will casue the catholic church, the most well organized christian body in existence to regroup and reformulate its legal definition.
It will allow lawsuits to be promulgated against the Mormons, the Masons, the Moslems and the Scientologists as well. Just wait and see.
You hit the nail on the head.
Yes, I concur.
If you are correct, then the bishop must be found guilty in a civil or criminal case to grab those assets for damages for fines.
PROBLEM. Bishops went the bankruptcy route.
I am a lawyer and said from the beginning this was putting the Church into the hands of the state.
Whatever else, a church is far more than one person.
No, the Methodist case in Calfornia and the case here are based on the same reasoning. You use the civil law to construe the title documents.
In California, the court saw that title was held in the name of the local body, and there were no binding trust ageements of record. Here, the title is held in the name of the Bishop, and there are no binding trust agreements of record.
In both cases, church law and traditions were ignored.
The lesson in both cases is the same as well. If you want the civil courts to protect your interests, you need to have your paperwork in order to civil standards.
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