PORTLAND (OR)
Life Site
PORTLAND, Ore., August 2, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a rare legal maneuver the Portland Archdiocese has named 389,000 registered lay Catholic parishioners as defendants in its ongoing bankruptcy case.
The Portland diocese was the first in the United States to file for bankruptcy protection after facing hundreds of sex-abuse lawsuits. In its bankruptcy petition the diocese claimed a likely $400 million in legal damages while listing only $19 million in assets.
The lawyers of the sex-abuse victims, however, are arguing that the diocese owns the property and buildings of its 124 parishes, estimated at a worth of $600 million. The diocese, on the other hand, claims that the church property belongs to the parishioners and the parishes and not the diocese as a whole.
If the court finds that the Portland parishes do belong to the diocese then the diocese may become the latest of the US dioceses forced to sell and close parishes and schools to pay legal settlements. The Portland bankruptcy court agreed to allow the nearly 400,000 parishioners to serve as defendants in the hope that it could settle once and for all the disputes over the ownership of the diocese’s parishes.