Harrisburg Catholic Diocese Declares Bankruptcy, the First to Do So in Pa. Under Weight of Clergy Sex-Abuse Claims

The Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | 2/19/20 | Jeremy Roebuck and Angela Couloumbis

[marshmallow]

HARRISBURG — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg filed for bankruptcy Wednesday, becoming the first diocese in the state to seek protection from financial claims in the aftermath of a 2018 grand jury report that revealed decades of sexual abuse and cover-up by the church’s top leaders.

And, said a lawyer for the diocese, it’s not likely to be the last.

Citing the fallout from that probe and recent court decisions that opened new avenues for some victims with time-barred claims to sue, attorney Matt Haverstick said Harrisburg, like each of the state’s eight other Catholic dioceses, faces the prospect of crushing court judgments that it will be unable to pay.

“There is no capacity to take that kind of exposure,” Haverstick said in an interview with The Inquirer and Spotlight PA. “I think this is really the beginning — not just in Pennsylvania but across the country — of a wave of reorganizations spawned by … the economics of trying to maintain an organization in the face of catastrophic litigation.”

With its filing Wednesday, the Harrisburg Diocese joins more than two dozen others across the United States that have sought similar bankruptcy protections since the clergy sex-abuse scandal first exploded in Boston 18 years ago.

[Luircin]

Good.

The entire Vatican needs to go bankrupt so there’s no defense left for those who would abuse children.

[af_vet_1981]

The Church would do well to purge itself of homosexual priests first.

The Church would do well to purge itself of πορνεία (porneia) among all its members.

The spread of porneia and its wide acceptance have corrupted the general society. Marriage is not a cure for depravity.

• Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that commiteth fornication sinneth against his own body.
  
  
  ...
  
  
  
• Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
  
  
  ...
  
  
  
• Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
  
  
  ...
  
  
  
• But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;
• How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
• These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.
• But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
• Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
• And of some have compassion, making a difference:
• And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

First Corinthians, Catholic chapter six, Protestant verse eighteen,
Galatians, Catholic chapter six, Protestant verse one,
James, Catholic chapter one, Protestant verse twenty seven,
Jude, Catholic chapter one, Protestant verses seventeen to twenty three,
as authorized, but not authored, by King James

[JesusIsLord]

Marriage is not a cure for depravity.

True, however if you want a perfect environment for homosexuals and homosexual pedophiles, it's the priesthood. The priesthood offers the pervert vulnerable young boys (parochial schools, camping activity, youth events) and zero accountability for the that priest's movements and homosexual associations - which otherwise a wife would serve as a hedge.

Sorry, it's not rocket science. The celibacy requirement is and always has been the primary reason there are so many perverted priests.

[af_vet_1981]

False; a perfect environment for homosexuals and homosexual pedophiles is not the priesthood. Rather, it is where true religion is ignored or rejected. Porneia is the problem.