The article starts with breathless quotes from someone at "bishopaccountability.org" and then describes an utterly sensible financial rearrangement.
In 2012--six years before it filed for bankruptcy in 2018 (and likely before lawsuits that were pending at the time of bankruptcy were filed, although the article does not specify)--the diocese instructed individual parishes on how to separately incorporate to separate their assets from the diocese:
> Salgado had called the meeting to explain to the managers how to incorporate their parishes separate from the archdiocese. “We got step-by-step instructions,” says Christine Romero, then the business manager for St. Anne parish in Santa Fe.
This is totally reasonable. If a parish has a priest that commits sexual abuse, then it should be liable. If the diocese facilitates that, sure, push liability up to it. But what's the justification for then pushing liability across and back down to a parish across town? Why should those parishioners lose their assets and property?
Note that bankruptcy law prohibits transfers made in anticipation of filing bankruptcy. The transactions described in the article wouldn't fall under those rules, because there is nothing wrong with structuring an organization to keep liability contained in distinct sub-units. Maybe it's different for a business where the individual units are income-producing entities funneling up all profits to the top. But churches, even Catholic churches, are pretty local things. Most of the property and assets is used for the benefit of each group of parishioners, and they have little to do with the diocese as a whole at the financial level.
I'm probably stepping on a landmine here, but I'm not sure who it helps for dioceses' to have to literally sell off parishes to pay out sex abuse claims against people who in many cases are no longer even associated with the diocese.
Forcing dioceses to close and restart from square one doesn't really even hurt any of the people responsible as much as it hurts all the parishioners who now have to bootstrap a brand new diocese. At least when a company files for bankruptcy, the owners' equity is severely damaged. What does a bishop lose? After bankruptcy he probably even retains his position.
One can hope that this is the impetus we need to reform bankruptcy and laws governing assets. Companies should have no mechanism to shield assets in such a manner.
They are talking about very small regional affiliates of the church. So take the quarter of a billion here, and the half billion there, then multiply it by estimated 2,200 dioceses around the world.
The result is a damn large number, maybe around a trillion dollars.
In 2012--six years before it filed for bankruptcy in 2018 (and likely before lawsuits that were pending at the time of bankruptcy were filed, although the article does not specify)--the diocese instructed individual parishes on how to separately incorporate to separate their assets from the diocese:
> Salgado had called the meeting to explain to the managers how to incorporate their parishes separate from the archdiocese. “We got step-by-step instructions,” says Christine Romero, then the business manager for St. Anne parish in Santa Fe.
This is totally reasonable. If a parish has a priest that commits sexual abuse, then it should be liable. If the diocese facilitates that, sure, push liability up to it. But what's the justification for then pushing liability across and back down to a parish across town? Why should those parishioners lose their assets and property?
Note that bankruptcy law prohibits transfers made in anticipation of filing bankruptcy. The transactions described in the article wouldn't fall under those rules, because there is nothing wrong with structuring an organization to keep liability contained in distinct sub-units. Maybe it's different for a business where the individual units are income-producing entities funneling up all profits to the top. But churches, even Catholic churches, are pretty local things. Most of the property and assets is used for the benefit of each group of parishioners, and they have little to do with the diocese as a whole at the financial level.