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	Lay Workers Are Innocent and Deserve Place at Table The News Journal April 13, 2010 http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100413/OPINION11/4130320 Catholic lay workers' efforts to protect their pensions in the Diocese of Wilmington's bankruptcy filing demonstrate how the clergy sexual abuse scandal continues to ripple through the lives of innocent victims. The appeal of the roughly 2,000 current and former lay employees is a legitimate priority for redressing the diocese's unsecured creditors. Like other creditors making claims for compensation, the U.S. Office of Trustees should grant these lay workers a seat in the Chapter 11 reorganization. Money in the diocese's lawfully vested pension fund should be declared separate and distinct from its assets, despite the local church's willingness to include them. The Chapter 11 process has been used well for resolving similar and difficult cases involving workers who become creditors vis-a-vis their status as vested pensioners. With manufacturers faced with an avalanche of asbestos-related liability suits, the court shifted from litigation mode to an administrative one to create a mechanism for compensation of those victims. Unfortunately, the vast damage claims facing the Catholic Church over the confirmed worldwide documentation of priestly misconduct too narrowly define the victims. Not protecting these innocent workers' claims to pensions they earned through their long history of service unfairly targets them as worthy of punishment for a crime they had no hand in committing.
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