All your base belong to us

Portland (Oregon) Archdiocese vows to continue work despite court ruling : CNS

Despite a court ruling that could significantly boost the amount the Portland Archdiocese must pay for sex-abuse settlements, archdiocesan leaders said the local church and its work will endure.

"The archdiocese is committed to continuing its religious and charitable mission to Catholics and others, including thousands of schoolchildren, its parishioners, and the poor and dispossessed, as it has for its 157-year history in Oregon, no matter what obstacles confront it," said an archdiocesan statement issued after the Dec. 30 decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris.

In a ruling that asserted the primacy of secular law over church law in the matter of bankruptcy, Perris said the archdiocese is the owner of parish and school properties.

As I have been writing all along. The bishops want to have their cake and eat it too: control of the assets, avoidance of the liabilities.

Canon lawyer
Ed Peters has written "Catholic parishes canonically own the assets assigned to or acquired by themselves".

I claim this has never been true. The bishops own the assets even if canon law combines many notational assets into one asset-holder, the bishop. In civil law he necessarily combines all the liabilities as well.

It's absurd to think that bishops are unencumbered in their ability to sell parish property under civil law, yet encumbered when it comes to the same under a judicial finding of financial liability.

Since I'm limited to 500 chars. there, let me elaborate here:

It's not as if there's hundreds of non-profit corporations civilly-formed which exercise the common meaning of ownership with the bishop as the chairman of board of each one, and each board looks out for the best interests of the public for which that non-profit serves. No it's not that way at all.

It's all combined in the person of the bishop and it's his total discretion to acquire or dispose of property. This is the concept of the monarchial bishop which I fully support.