Santa Fe Archdiocese Incorporating Many Parishes

Necn NEW MEXICO
January 6, 2014

http://www.necn.com/01/06/14/Santa-Fe-Archdiocese-incorporating-many-/landing_nation.html?&apID=a68c6abd462f42849c5d28fea7ba599c

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe has incorporated dozens of its parishes as nonprofits, a move that an attorney who has represented victims of clerical sexual abuse says could be an attempt to protect church assets.

"If they are separately incorporated entities, the parish can say they have no responsibility for abuses at another parish," said the attorney, James Stang of Los Angeles.

Incorporation of most of the archdiocese's 92 parishes follows similar steps by several other dioceses in the region, including those in Las Cruces, Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz., the Albuquerque Journal ( ) reported.

Diocese of Tucson officials said its 2005 incorporation of parishes provided them with "protection from liability for the acts of the diocese or for the acts of the other parishes."

Incorporation makes parishes legally distinct from the diocese, according to the Tucson diocese's website. "Thus, the parishes will not pay for the debts or shortcomings of the diocese or its bishop."

In response to a request by The Associated Press for comment, an Archdiocese of Santa Fe spokeswoman on Monday provided a December 2012 article authored by Tony Salgado, executive director of finance.

In the article, Salgado said incorporations of parishes will have their status under civil law reflect that they have separate identities under church law.

"This new structure mirrors what church law, that is cannon law, already describes," Salgado wrote.

The archdiocese incorporated most of its parishes from November 2012 through April 2013, according to records filed with the New Mexico secretary of state.

It also formed a nonprofit called the Archdiocese of Santa Fe Real Estate Corporation in December 2012, state records show.

The archdiocese faces at least 18 lawsuits filed by unnamed men ranging in ages from their late 30s to mid-50s who allege that, as teenagers, they were sexually abused by priests at parishes throughout northern New Mexico.

All 18 lawsuits were filed in state District Court in Albuquerque from April through June, said Albuquerque attorney Brad Hall, who filed the lawsuits.

Hall said he doesn't know how the archdiocese's decision to incorporate parishes might affect the lawsuits. "We're just getting started on this litigation," he said.