Judge’s Cemetery Link an Issue in Archdiocese Bankruptcy

By Mark Peters
Wall Street Journal
August 15, 2013

http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-301745/

Lawyers representing sex abuse victims and other creditors in the bankruptcy filing of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee want a federal judge to vacate his own ruling and recuse himself because of where his relatives are buried.

A filing this week calls for U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa to vacate his recent decision that $55 million in a cemetery trust are protected from creditors in the bankruptcy proceedings.

The reason: Judge Randa has at least nine relatives in cemeteries maintained by the trust and purchased the gravesites of his parents, meaning the trust includes funds from him, according to the motion.

The Milwaukee archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2011 as it faced allegations of sexual abuse by priests. In 2007, then-Archbishop of Milwaukee Timothy Dolan, now a cardinal and head of the New York Archdiocese, asked the Vatican for permission to move the funds into an “autonomous pious foundation,” according to a letter he sent to Rome.

The letter said the funds were diocesan assets restricted for the perpetual needs of the cemeteries.