The lay review board advising Arcbhishop Sean O’Malley on the parish closings agrees that the almost all of the decisions are the right ones. In other words, don’t expect many more reversals like the ones given this week for Blessed Kateri in Plymouth and St. Bernard in Newton. Yet, they aren’t completely in the archbishop’s camp as the board is preparing a report on the closing process that’s not liekly to be highly flattering.
Still, as I and others have pointed out, while the reversals and other conciliatory gesturesSo, for example, the diocese can’t arbitrarily claim the parish’s bank account if it wants.
employees?
Dom, we disagree here:
Bishops own the assets of the parish that can be sold, i.e. exchanged for cash. This should be obvious: If you can sell it, you must be the owner.
A parish can be thought of as a collection of souls which reside in a particular area, but they are talking about real estate and chattels (i.e. land, buildings, and fax machines) as well as cash in the bank.
For a bishop to say in a bankruptcy (and a voluntary one at that) that he’s not of a mind to suppress a parish to raise cash, it will rightly been seen as a ruse.
Also, I think that the position that Canon Law takes on this is totally irrelevant in a state or federal court.
If a claim is successful against the diocese for $1 billion, then render to Caesar what is Caesar’s.
Melanie,
Yep, employees. You know, like me?
Patrick,
But there is a disctinction between the bishop and the diocese. If the diocese declares bankruptcy, it doesn’t mean that the bishop has. And no one is claiming the bishop owns parishes. He doesn’t. He is, at most, a trustee of the parish.
And the canon law is not irrelevant if the proper state or federal documents were drawn up with provisions taken from canon law. The courts don’t care where the provisions came from, as long as they’re canon law.
If a claim is successful against the diocese for $1 billion, then render to Caesar what is Caesarve solved 99 percent of the problem.
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