Posted on 05/09/2017 4:54:32 PM PDT by marshmallow
'It's now time to give back to the tribe all of those pieces of land that were given to the church for church purposes,' Fr John Hatcher said
The Jesuits are returning more than 500 acres in South Dakota to the Rosebud Sioux. The formal return of the property is expected to be complete sometime in May.
The property had been given by the US government to the Jesuits in the 1880s for use for churches and cemeteries, according to remarks in a YouTube video by Jesuit Father John Hatcher, president of St. Francis Mission.
“At the beginning of the mission, we had 23 mission stations,” Fr Hatcher said. “But over the years as the people moved off the prairie and into cluster housing, those churches were closed because they were considered unnecessary.” Other properties never had churches built.
“It’s now time to give back to the tribe all of those pieces of land that were given to the church for church purposes,” Fr Hatcher added. “We will never again put churches on those little parcels of land. But it’s an opportunity to return land that rightly belongs to the Lakota people,” of which the Rosebud Sioux are a part.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicherald.co.uk ...
Nice move.
I didn’t read the article, did they return the entire acreage or only a portion of it?
Call me cynical, but the order is almost dead, anyway. I can’t help wonder if they did it to keep it from falling into the hands of real Catholics.
If the taxpayers gave the land for a specific purpose, and that purpose is not being met, the land should be returned to the taxpayers.
Someone should probably dig out the original terms and see if a Qui Tam lawsuit against the Church would be appropriate.
virtue signalling?
Correct ... and also wouldn’t such a gift change the status of the land as it relates to the government’s eminent domain or other authority it has over that land by converting it to Indian territory? And how could the Jesuits possibly have the authority to do that?
It would not necessarily be land under tribal sovereignty.
I assume that the Jebbies after a complete survey found out that there is no gold,silver,oil,coal etc under their land.
So they give it back!
Well, perhaps it's more benign than I just alleged; perhaps the Jesuits just don't have anything they can do with the land anymore. The current head of the Jesuits is dreadful, though. His recent remarks about how there was no tape recorder when Jesus spoke about divorce, so we don't know that was actually opposed to it...well, what is there to say about those? The Jesuit order seems lost, compared to what it once was. Many seem to be, based on the articles they write, intellectual elitists whose embrace of leftist politics in the name of “the poor” are hollow and self-congratulatory. The assumption of many of them that politically conservative Catholics “don't care about the poor” is so offensive that I have hard time taking any of them seriously anymore.
In reading the article, the amount of land being returned, 525 acres, seems to be on the Rosebud Sioux reservation anyway. It is also spotted somewhere within the 90 thousand acres in the reservation of roughly 15,000 Sioux actually living on the property. I researched and found that the number one financial commitment for them is cattle and farming, so the land won’t be wasted and depending on how the land is divided will determine the use. It is currently grazing land anyway so improvements will be expensive and may be outside of the need.
Nothing big here. It’s a hobby farm for anyone but the locals and not a whole lot more for them.
rwood
Why don’t the Jesuits just get the hell out of the Americas, period??!!
So long as they are going to have PC guilt, they should free themselves of the “burdens” of any properties anywhere in North, Central, or South America.
Keystone
It’s about Keystone.
While you’re at it repay the boys you guys allowed to be raped at Boys Town.
OK as long as they have to pay property tax like anyone else.
Neither the Jesuits nor the Indians pay property taxes. Hence this “donation” which happens to benefit another party who’s behind the scenes. Jesuits do not give away real estate for mere altruism.
If the property is converted to Indian territory, then right, they wouldn’t pay taxes. But my prior comment in that conversation was that I don’t think the Jesuit’s donation does convert that property, in which case barring any exemption that relates to the owners (ie a church) as opposed to the land (ie territory), then I think they would pay taxes like anyone else ... I think.
I see your logic, yes, and due to many laws and reasons (in USA for sure anyway), Jesuits never pay taxes.
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