PORTLAND (OR)
The Daily News
By Associated Press
Dec 30, 2005 - 10:08:02 pm PST
PORTLAND -- A bankruptcy judge ruled Friday that the Archdiocese of Portland, not its parishes, owns church assets, dealing a major blow to its efforts to protect church property from lawsuits filed by alleged victims of priest sex abuse.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris, in a pair of opinions, ruled that church property and real estate are under the control of the archdiocese, not its individual parishes, as attorneys for the archdiocese had argued.
In a related ruling, Perris approved questions that attorneys for the victims plan to ask Archbishop William Levada on Jan. 6 when he becomes the highest-ranking Vatican official to testify in a deposition.
The archdiocese became the first in the nation to declare bankruptcy when it filed for protection from creditors in July 2004, just before the scheduled start of jury trials for victims seeking more than $155 million in damages.