BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald
By Marie Szaniszlo
Sunday, August 28, 2005
A federal bankruptcy judge has ruled that churches, parochial schools and other assets belong to a diocese, not to individual parishes and trusts - a major victory for clergy sexual abuse victims suing for damages, and a potential blow to Boston-area parishioners suing to reopen closed churches.
By rejecting its argument that the assets of parishes belong not to the diocese but to parishioners, Judge Patricia Williams undermined the Spokane, Wash., diocese's attempt to limit the assets creditors could seize to settle lawsuits brought by 58 people who say they were abused by priests.
The diocese plans to appeal. But if the ruling is upheld, it could have broad implications for dioceses attempting to fend off lawsuits by sex-abuse victims by claiming that parish assets belong to parishioners.
It would likewise affect the Boston Archdiocese, which is making a mirror-image attempt to foil lawsuits by parishioners at churches it has closed by claiming parish assets belong to the archdiocese.
``If this decision is upheld after appeals, it is of landmark importance for the Catholic Church in America,'' said Peter Borre, a spokesman for the Council of Parishes, a group opposed to Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley's decision last year to close roughly one-quarter of the archdiocese's 357 parishes, largely due to dwindling donations in the wake of the clergy sex-abuse scandal.