The Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington appears to have learned a few secular lessons from corporate felons in that state. On the eve of the first trial of dozens of sex-abuse cases with hundreds of millions in potential damages, the diocese filed for bankruptcy to try to make any damages more difficult to collect. The decision by Bishop W. Francis Malooly is being attacked as an effort to reduce potential damages in the various cases moving toward trial.
The diocese is facing the cases due to a two-year moratorium on the statute of limitations passed by the legislature in 2007 — resulting in 142 alleged victims filing lawsuits. The church has now responded by filing for Chapter 11 protection. Bishop W. Francis Malooly called bankruptcy a “painful decision” but insisted that it will not only protect the church but allow payment to victims.
Lawyers for the victims, however, denounced the move as a “fraudulent tactic” designed to hide assets and accountability.
For the full story, click here
From the article: “In its filing, the diocese claimed assets of $50 million to $100 million.”
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Must be tough not knowing how much you own. A million here, a million there, and pretty soon you are talking real money.
dosent it all belong to Rome in any event?
Can Rome be sued as well or least be forced to pony over payments?
These bankruptcies are a pattern with the church, just like the consistent denial of sex abuse and the movement of priests from parish to parish and the higher ups moved to Rome out of the reach of court testimony.
I think this pattern is enough to go forward with claims against the “Holy” See-no-evil itself. They have engaged in tactics that rival any other criminal enterprise and they should be treated as such.
Byron,
This is what I found:
“A federal appeals court has permitted a lawsuit over alleged sexual abuse to proceed against the Vatican, creating potential liability for the seat of the Roman Catholic faith for the activities of Catholic clergy in the U.S.
Monday’s ruling, issued by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, marks the first time a court at so high a level has recognized that the Vatican could be liable for the negligence in sexual-abuse cases brought in the U.S.
The ruling is seen as a breakthrough by those allegedly abused by priests. Investigators and grand juries have found several instances where the church failed to report alleged abusers and covered up alleged misdeeds to protect them.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122756420187954231.html
Jill:
your last sentence implies that Rome was kept in the dark about some or all of the abuse.
That is the real question, did Rome know about the abuse or was it complicit in the cover-ups which occurred in the US. I find it hard to think they did not know, as a 12 year old in the late 60′s we used to joke about the Priests and the alter boys. I knew quite a good many Catholic children and they used to joke about it but I never met a kid that had actually been abused or heard any rumors of such abuse.
They really do need to let Priests marry, it is un-natural to be obstinate.
Byron,
They knew. There’s plenty of evidence for that. If you read the whole article it will show that the problem isn’t lack of knowledge by the Vatican but the status of it vis a vis our courts.
The Catholic church has also threatened Washington DC that it will discontinue “the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.”
Presumably the church now does not need the heightened access to young ones that such a program would afford but rather some cash for legal defense against the alleged crimes resulting from prior access.
The church of Bart Stupak, both doing their very best to take us back as many centuries as possible.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111116943_pf.html
Let’s face it the new Pope, former Hiyler youth, is a disaster for the RCC. He hearkens back to older times when the Pope saw himself as a Political leader. The problem is that in those times the Popes usually weren’t true believers. This Pope is as Fundamentalist as you can get, but lacks the humanity and charm of the previous Pope, who was also quite conservative. This at a time when the RCC is losing membership in droves does not bode well for the RCC. This bankruptcy filing shows a religious institution behaving like a major corporation, that too is not a good sign.
Let’s face it the new Pope, former Hitler youth, is a disaster for the RCC. He hearkens back to older times when the Pope saw himself as a Political leader. The problem is that in those times the Popes usually weren’t true believers. This Pope is as Fundamentalist as you can get, but lacks the humanity and charm of the previous Pope, who was also quite conservative. This at a time when the RCC is losing membership in droves does not bode well for the RCC. This bankruptcy filing shows a religious institution behaving like a major corporation, that too is not a good sign. Where is Pope John Roncate when you need him most?
Ladies and gentlemen. I now introduce you to the half nelson, full nelson and our very own deep Father Nelson.
I guess its not as bad a rodeo sex.
There is nothing more satisfying to the force of evil than to destroy the innocent goodness of a child. There is nothing more abhorrent to evil than to lose perfectly good assets to that child.
Bishop W. Francis Malooly’s portrait reflects a counterfeit snake oil prophet illustrating in one view the largest fraud ever conned on the human race—a guarantee of an everlasting soul based on an imaginary anthropomorphic ill-tempered, heavy-handed smoke and mirrors ghost-god floating amorphously somewhere up yonder in the stratosphere.
Former Fed:
I suggest that one need look no further than the actions of these expert churchmen as support for your view.
If the heaven that they preach really does exist then one would think they would be trying much harder to get in.
They are not, so it must not … and they would know, would they not?
Blouise, I like your commentary.
Well its a shame our archbishop must not have known about that, according to the St Louis Post Dispatch front page yesterday the new archbishop here went into his private discressionary fund and sent $10,000.00 to Maine to help stop gay marrige there.. Im sure he really would have wanted to help out poor Delaware if only he had known
Form Fed,
I have a wonderful, religious picture in my head that I really wish I could have witnessed in person.
The Fort Hood shooter finally wakes up from his coma in the hospital room to find an MP, a FBI Special Agent, and a CID Special Agent standing at the foot of his bed smiling and welcoming him … to Paradise.
Certainly a serendipitously holy moment for the shooter that any archbishop would appreciate.
It is my understanding that each diocese that the Bishop is responsible for is a separate 501 (3)(C) non profit corporation. The Vatican which is entirely within the city of Rome is an independent country.They have offered for century’s one of the oldest franchise agreements of record.
Just like each McDonalds has a separate owner as in a franchising agreement.
“Bishop W. Francis Malooly’s portrait reflects a counterfeit snake oil prophet illustrating in one view the largest fraud ever conned on the human race—a guarantee of an everlasting soul based on an imaginary anthropomorphic ill-tempered, heavy-handed smoke and mirrors ghost-god floating amorphously somewhere up yonder in the stratosphere.”
FFLEO,
That was your greatest effort thus far at waxing poetic and I can’t say I disagree with you.
The RCC has been morally bankrupt for quite some time.
Thank you Mike Spindell. I was anticipating your comment if you happened to visit this thread. I am always interested in your opinions and positions on subjects.
Every day, I grow more weary observing too frequent evidence of humans maiming, torturing, going to war against, and killing other humans based on impulsive, irrational, illogical religious “beliefs” instead of logically and methodically *thinking* through the consequences of their actions in the *here and now.*
While the RCC is losing members among Western Europeans in Europe and the US, it is picking up many members in Africa and Asia. I don’t think the pope cares if the church is predominately based in Latin America, Africa and Asia where his authority remains largely unquestioned. AY is correct that each diocese is a separate entity.
Well if they take it back to Armenia they will find the birthplace of Christianity and if they go looking in Africa they will find what is believed in Ethiopia the alleged birthplace of man. Kinda scary for a white person, huh….
Especially if you are racist.
“For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?”
–Mark 8:36
One wonders if that applies to divine institutions too?
If they can file for bankruptcy, shouldn’t their tax exempt status be revoked? If they can use the court to avoid civil liability, I don’t understand why society should not make them pay taxes. They are spending a lot of money to lobby for abortion issues and they hide their priests from the police and they also get tax exempt status, and then when they get caught with their “hand” in the cookie jar, they file BK. Such a Christian way of dealing with their problems! WWJD?
FFLEO,
Even though I’m a deist and so admit the possibility of a creative force in the universe, there is no religion that in my opinion comes anywhere close to defining the nature of that force.
How can there be because in the vastness of the universe we humans count for nothing? By the same token I’m also open to the notions of life after death and ESP, but in truth I wouldn’t count on an afterlife because the logistics seem far too difficult. Yet one could have a spiritual sense of life and just as validly one could not. Where we meet mentally in this is that the minions of religion have caused most of the wars, unneeded deaths and oppression in humanity’s history, plus most of their leadership is and always has been, batshit crazy!
You think it just happened here?
There has been an enormous scandal in Ireland where the Christian Brothers. a catholic group has run reform schools and orphanages for decades. $175 million in damages has already been paid, and total damages may reach nearly $2 billion.
These so called Catholics raped and beat children, forced them to work building religious trinkets in cold, poorly heated factories, and God only know what the food, or lack therof was like. A good day for the students was a day without a beating.
Google “Christian Brothers Ireland” for the gory details.
This may have also happened in Italy, there are references, but no english info.
The church is corrupt. And given the fact that the church not only hid these crimes for decades, but simply re-assigned their sex starved abusers to new locations to continue their crimes, we have to ask if the whole hierarchy is complicit. And why did they do this crimes – it sounds so similar to what happens in prison populations -where the sex starved prisoners rape to humiliate the weaker, to establish the prisoners power structure.
I hope the lawyers have a way to block the bankruptcy. Nothing would be more fitting for humanity then to see the churches under the wrecking ball. Catholics too, once they realize what the church has done, would be singing Free at Last, Free at Last, thank God almighty I am free at last”.
And for the Good Catholic people – so many of them – I can only urge you to do what I did. Leave your religion, and find a religion that is true to the meaning of Jesus life on Earth.
And to also, in your decision, remember that it was the Catholic church who gave the world the hatred of Jesus own people, the Jews. A hatred which reached its zenith when hitler, a catholic from very catholic Austria, used this hatred to gain political control of Germany. And 50 million died in mankind’s worst conflagration. While the then pope did little if anything to help the Jews. One would think that a man in such a position would simply tell the nazi’s where to go, and if he was murdered for doing that, well he would believe that he would sit at the right hand of God.
And to this day, the church has yet, as far as I know, failed to excommunicate hitler or his gang.
Don;t let their fears and guilt trips, and threats of not getting to heaven keep you in the church. For leaving it will most like be a ticket to heaven, while those who sell their very soul to the church, well, God will Judge.