By Maureen Milford
The News Journal
October 21, 2009
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20091021/NEWS/91021037
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| Lawyers for alleged clergy sexual abuse victims want property, such as this church in Middletown, included in bankruptcy proceeding. |
Lawyers for alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse indicated in federal court today they would seek to include property owned by parishes in the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington Inc. in the diocese's bankruptcy proceeding.
In the diocese’s first appearance in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, James Stang, lawyer for the unofficial committee of abuse survivors, said he will challenge the diocese’s assertion that parishes have a separate legal status from the diocese.
The diocese Sunday night sought protection in bankruptcy court in an effort to manage an avalanche of clergy sexual-abuse claims. One goal in seeking bankruptcy is to preserve the diocese’s assets and make sure “they will be distributed equitably to all creditors, not just a select few,” said Monsignor J. Thomas Cini in a declaration filed with the court. The second goal is to continue the ministries of the Catholic Church within the diocese, he said.
“It cannot, and will not, stand by and permit its piecemeal dismemberment at the hands of its creditors,” Cini said.
Cini said the diocese, which encompasses 58 parishes in all of Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland, is a tax-exempt company incorporated under the state’s general corporation law. The parishes are formed under another Delaware law -- the religious societies and corporations statute -- or Maryland’s religious corporations law, he said.
The parish corporations are not part of the bankruptcy proceeding, Cini said in his declaration.
But Stang, who has represented victims in other diocesan bankruptcies, said bankrupt dioceses always seek to maintain a separate legal status from the parishes. Lawyers for abuse victims in other bankruptcies have managed to include the parish property as part of the settlement to victims, he said.
“But let me make something clear,” Stang said. “To the best of my knowledge no school or parish was sold to pay survivors of [abuse] claims.”
Contact Maureen Milford at 324-2881 or mmilford@delawareonline.com
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