The Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan comes after confidential mediation sessions with the plaintiffs’ attorneys and insurers, resulting in a proposed deal to resolve the abuse claims, diocese officials said.
Bishop George Leo Thomas expressed “his profound sorrow” and apologized to the victims in a news conference.
Statement from Bishop Stephen Blaire
After months of careful consideration and prayer, it has become clear to me that the Diocese of Stockton’s financial difficulties can only be resolved by filing for bankruptcy protection. This decision was reached through consultation with experts in finance and law, as well as with priests, parishioners and many others in the community our Diocese serves.
Our attorneys will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2014.
PopeWatch has noticed that the closer one pays attention to the day to day operations of the Vatican the more one becomes convinced that the Roman Catholic Church is the True Faith. Why? Well for the same reason that a Jewish merchant converted to Catholicism in the Renaissance.
He had expressed an interest in converting to a Catholic merchant friend of his. He announced to his friend that he was going to Rome to see the operation of the curia up close. His friend who knew the corruption at Rome was aghast and assumed that his friend would lose all interest in converting. Instead his friend came back and announced that he was being baptized in a month.
His friend was happy, but asked him why. “At Rome I saw how the curia operates. If I operated that way I would be bankrupt in a week. The Church however has been going strong in spite of this for sixteen centuries (Now twenty – Ed.). It must be from God!”
In issuing the ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Rudolph T. Randa said including the funds would violate free exercise of religion under the First Amendment and a 1993 law aimed at protecting religious freedom. Randa cited the Catholic belief in the resurrection, which teaches that the body ultimately reunites with the soul, and the role of Catholic cemeteries in the exercise of that belief under canon law.
“The sacred nature of Catholic cemeteries – and compliance with the church’s historical and religious traditions and mandates requiring their perpetual care – are understood as a fundamental exercise of this core belief,” said Randa in overturning an earlier decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley.
The decision was a major victory for the archdiocese, and appears to eliminate one of the last large assets available to sex abuse victims who have filed claims in the bankruptcy.
During the years when reports of clerical sexual abuse were crossing the desk of the former archbishop of Milwaukee, Rembert Weakland, OSB – who resigned his post after revelations of his own homosexual predations and a payoff were publicly exposed in May 2002 – was pushing explicit sex education and pro-homosexual programs in his archdiocese.
One of the striking revelations in the 6,000 pages of documentation released July 1 by Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki is that the majority of complaints against offending priests – both current and those of a historical nature dating back decades – landed on Archbishop Weakland’s desk between 1979 and 1990.
Indeed, 29 of the 42 complaints of sexual abuse by archdiocesan priests that led to the archdiocese filing for bankruptcy in federal court were reported to Weakland in that period.
The first such report to reach Weakland, in April 1979, concerned Fr. William Effinger, from the father of a minor male who accused Effinger of molesting his son.
Congratulations Cyprus savers – you were just betrayed by both your politicians, and by Europe – sorry, but you are the “creeping impairments” in the game known as European bankruptcy. And so is anywhere between 6.75% and 9.9% of your money, which you were foolish enough to keep with your banks (where at least you were compensated with a savings yield of… 0%).
More importantly, as of this morning Europe has finally grasped that there is a 6.75% to 9.9% premium to holding physical cash in your mattress rather than having it stored with your local friendly insolvent bank.
Luckily Cyrpus is so “small” what just happened there will never happen anywhere else: after all in Europe nobody has ever heard of “setting an example”. Or so the thinking among Europe’s unthinking political elite goes.
And congratulations Europe: just when people almost believed you things are “fixed” you go ahead and prove to the world that you are as disunified (because size doesn’t matter in a true union), as confused, as stupid and as broke as ever.
Editor’s note: Coming soon to a bank in your neighborhood?
An Orange County bankruptcy judge ruled Thursday that the Crystal Cathedral, a monument to modernism in faith and architecture, will be sold for $57.5 million to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, which plans to consecrate it as a Catholic cathedral.
Among the questions is what will happen to the Crystal Cathedral ministry now led by Schuller’s daughter, Sheila Schuller Coleman. The church has been in a downward slide for years, culminating in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in October 2010, when it cited more than $50 million in debt.
Editor’s note: Time to buy stock in Windex. Let’s hope all that glass is covered by earthquake insurance. And of course, no high pitched singing should be allowed!
The accuser does not have to meet any litmus test for ‘credibility’ of the accusation. In fact, their story can be impossible to have taken place, the priest can have witnesses and facts that vindicate him and they are still out of their ministries for over ten years.
During that time, the allegations are withheld from them and their attorneys. They are forbidden from defending themselves.
Their money is cut off so that hiring an attorney relies on getting somebody to do it pro bono.
What do you think the chances are of that?
They bankrupt you financially, morally and spiritually.
There are no rules of civil procedure. In fact, the accused does not have to testify under pains and penalties of perjury while the priests are forced to sign away their right to civilly recover damages for libel, slander and defamation of character. You cannot cross examine.
The diocese, at least here in Boston, provides the accuser with a coach.
You read that right. The archdiocese helps to coach the accuser.
When center-right Catalan nationalists replaced the Socialist government in that region, incoming officials discovered the local budget deficit was twice the amount than had been previously reported.
These so-called hidden debt concerns may be more widespread than is currently known. “[The election winners are] going to arrive and realize there’s no money,” said Ismael Crespo, political scientist at the Ortega-Maranon Foundation in Madrid. “Many of the regions have problems not only to meet the deficit target but to meet basic services, which until now have been hidden because of the elections,” he added. One of those regions is Castilla-La Mancha, a region where the PP and local business leaders claim invoices of $1.43 billion remain unpaid, and where Maria Dolores de Cospedal, the conservative party’s newly elected-regional president, has pledged to “audit” the region, which she characterized as “practically bankrupt.”
On the first anniversary of his installation, Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki announced Tuesday afternoon that the archdiocese will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Listecki said the move was necessary to fairly compensate victims and continue the “essential ministries” of the church, and urged the faithful not to blame the victims.
“Little did I imagine that one year later I would be making this announcement,” he said at a news conference at the Archbishop Cousins Center to announce the action.
He said the decision had been made after “much planning and prayer.”
The bankruptcy petition will not include parishes, schools and other Catholic entities that are separately incorporated, he said.
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