ST. PAUL AND MINNEAPOLIS (MN)
Pioneer Press
December 28, 2017
By Sarah Horner
A federal bankruptcy judge has rejected both the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ and a group of sexual abuse survivors’ proposed bankruptcy reorganization plans, which would have guided the payout to victims of abusive clergy.
The ruling issued Thursday by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel sends both parties back to the negotiating table with instructions to “put aside their desire to win” so a “resolution that is fair to all of the people involved” can be achieved.
“The (survivors) must put aside (their) desire for retribution,” according to the judge’s memo filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in St. Paul. “After all, whatever else the archdiocese is, it is a corporation. (And) corporations do not suffer; only people suffer.”
The Roman Catholic archdiocese will also need to shift priorities, Kressel wrote, in particular its “desire to minimize pain” to its current system and employees.
“The personal pain its employees inflicted upon victims is inevitably going to result in financial pain being suffered by a new generation of parishioners and employees,” he wrote.
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