BOSTON (MA)
RedNova
By Jason Szep
BOSTON (Reuters) - A group of Massachusetts lawmakers are trying to force the Catholic Church to open its financial books, an unprecedented step in a state at the heart of a scandal over pedophile priests.
Under the proposed law, the state's churches would need to disclose the health of their finances, a move resisted by religious leaders who say it contravenes the separation of church and state enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
The proposal, debated this week in the chambers and corridors of Boston, the state capital, follows a sexual abuse crisis that erupted in 2002 when many U.S. bishops were found to have moved priests known to have abused minors to new parishes instead of defrocking them or reporting them to authorities.
Since then, some U.S. dioceses have been forced to file for bankruptcy protection from lawsuits by abuse victims seeking millions of dollars.
The Boston Archdiocese, squeezed by the cost of settlements with nearly 1,000 sex-abuse victims, has shut more than 60 churches to raise money, triggering protests by churchgoers and raising questions over how the Church is using its donations from Sunday Mass and other sources.
"We want to know what they do with the donations, what property they own, and what is their debt?" Marian Walsh, a lawmaker who drafted the proposal, told Reuters on Thursday, a day after presenting it to the state's legislature.