Bishops who file under Chapter 11 should automatically offer their resignation to the Holy Father

[Maximian]

Chapter 11 bankruptcy exists in order to prevent what most people think of as real bankruptcy. It is a way to invite the authorities in to reorganise your business.

The immediate effect is that all legal suits are suspended and so are plaintiffs’ requests for documents.

If you want to know which dioceses are the ones with skeletons in the cupboard, it’s the one out of every six in the US that has filed under Chapter 11. Those are the bishops who should offer their resignation to the Holy Father.

Good news is that 5 out of 6 are NOT in this situation.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Good news is that the Church doesn’t share your opinion.

By the way, this is in News. Please add a relevant news article as this section is for commentary on news articles.

 

[CilladeRoma]

If we prayed for our clergy nearly as much as we criticize them, I believe our world and our Church would be a much better place.

 

[stpurl]

The difficulty here is that the majority of bishops who do this—following the advice of the legal experts in their diocese as well as obviously consulting the Vatican and its legal advisors as well—had absolutely nothing to do with HOW the diocese got into the mess in the first place, are usually called in (as the bishop of Albany was called to serve as auxiliary in Buffalo recently), etc.

Suppose you are the bishop of a diocese where the former bishop, now deceased, or retired, had had anything happen from priest sex abuses to accountants fiddling the books to sudden weather events which knocked out buildings, attrition, mass layoffs, etc. etc. and now you, appointed a few months ago, get told by the legal experts (who also cost money) that the only possible way for getting the diocese out of the hole —in order to take care of the many in it, your flock-means you have to declare bankruptcy. That means that there will be less ‘per capita’ but if you don’t, you may be able to pay off SOME people in full, but others will get absolutely nothing.

Of course it is not ‘fair’ but who says life is fair? One does the best one can.

 

[KMC]

I don’t know that your implication is that simple.

Without chapter 11, lawsuits can dribble in, awards made for the earlier filings, with nothing to cover later filings. Also, the average age of accused priests is fairly old (based on my looking at lists of accused priests), in fact, many of the accused are dead. Given a dead person can’t defend themselves, how can such a case be fairly adjudicated?

My point is this: chapter 11 may or may not be the moral path forward…not sure if you can broad brush this.

Thoughts?

 

[Dr_Meinheimer]

True of our secular leaders as well.

 

[DaveBj]

The difficulty here is that the majority of bishops who do this—following the advice of the legal experts in their diocese as well as obviously consulting the Vatican and its legal advisors as well—had absolutely nothing to do with HOW the diocese got into the mess in the first place

Bingo! I wanted to post about this side of the question, but I was feeling grumpy at the time, and I didn’t think I could say what I wanted to say and still be charitable.

D

 

[dochawk]

Chapter 11 bankruptcy exists in order to prevent what most people think of as real bankruptcy. It is a way to invite the authorities in to reorganise your business.

Speaking as a practicing bankruptcy attorney: you have no idea what you’re talking about.

These bankruptcies are not being filed because of the current bishops, but because of the past. The prudent thing to do is to file.

For the diocese to go forward and take care of tis flock, these claims need to be handled.

To confirm the Chapter 11 plan, the victims need to be paid as much as they would receive if the diocesan assets were liquidated. The responsible way to do this is with Chapter 11 instead of selling every last cathedral, church, school, and graveyard.

And given how the size of the settlement is measured, I flatly refuse to contribute to a diocese that hasn’t filed yet; it simply increases the settlement pool dollar for dollar.