SPOKANE (WA)
Catholic News Service
By Catholic News Service
SPOKANE, Wash. (CNS) -- Citing the "national consequences," Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane said he will appeal a federal bankruptcy court's ruling that parish properties must be included in the Spokane diocesan assets used to settle millions of dollars in clergy sex abuse claims.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Patricia Williams of Spokane ruled Aug. 26 that civil property laws prevail in a bankruptcy proceeding despite any internal church laws that might bar a bishop from full control over parish assets. Diocesan lawyers had argued that in church law parish assets belong to the parish itself, not to its pastor or to the bishop. They said that, while the diocesan bishop was nominally the owner in civil law, even in civil law he only held those properties in trust for the parishes themselves.
"It is not a violation of the First Amendment," Williams wrote, "to apply federal bankruptcy law to identify and define property of the bankruptcy estate even though the Chapter 11 debtor is a religious organization."
Her ruling, if upheld, would vastly increase the diocesan assets subject to the abuse claims and would up the ante nationwide for any other diocese considering that approach to resolving sexual abuse claims against its clergy.