Daily Mail
March 21, 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368427/Nuns-SUE-local-archbishop-1-4million-pensions-row.html
Nuns taking an archbishop to court is certainly far from your average day in a convent.
But the Daughters of St Paul are suing the Boston Archdiocese and Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley at the Supreme Judicial Court in a $1.4million row over pensions.
They want the court to rule they were never part of a church-run pension fund and have their contributions reimbursed - or for full accounting of their portion to be provided.
 |
| Argument: Archbishop of Boston Sean Patrick O'Malley and the archdiocese contest the figure owed, saying both parties 'have agreed to try mediation' |
Their lawyers say they are only taking on the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston as a last resort and are ‘just as unhappy as they can be about having to do this’.
The nuns estimate their assets were valued at $1.37million in 2007, but say $500,000 of this is contested to have devalued since the 2008 stock market crash.
The nuns - part of an international order with 135 members in the U.S. and 60 living in Boston - invested in the now heavily-underfunded pension fund for lay workers.
A pension fund for priests in Boston has also been troubled in recent years but the archdiocese says its condition has now improved, reported the Boston Globe.
The Daughters run multimedia publishing house Pauline Books and Media, which publishes books, iPhone and iPod applications, music and educational materials.
But the funds at stake are for the retirement of their lay employees at Pauline Books and Media - rather than for the nuns’ own retirement.
 |
| Nuns in court: The Daughters of St Paul are taking the Boston Archdiocese and Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley to court in a $1.4million pensions row (file picture) |
The order has about 50 employees and retirees in Boston and another 50 nationwide.
The Daughters tried to leave the archdiocesan fund in 2005 to establish and run a single pension plan for all their U.S. employees, the lawsuit said.
But representatives of the church-run plan allegedly could not supply the data required to start the spin-off - which has been denied by the pension plan trustees.
The nuns are filing the lawsuit in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court against the pension plan trustees, including Cardinal O’Malley and several of his top aides.
The order wants a ruling for them to be provided with full accounting of their portion of the fund - or a ruling that the nuns were technically never part of the church-run plan.
The nuns want this to lead to the archdiocese reimbursing contributions and returns.
An archdiocese spokesman said both parties have agreed to try mediation and it is hoped the dispute will be resolved ‘within the coming weeks’.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.