Posted on 08/30/2005 7:57:24 PM PDT by Salvation
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.
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