Dr. Ed Peters, who has degrees in both canon law and civil law asks questions that will, I think, consume more and more of the attention of Catholics around the country this year (and probably many years beyond). He begins:
Federal bankruptcy judge Elizabeth Perris has ruled that parish property within the Archdiocese of Portland OR is subject to seizure if needed to satisfy the liability obligations (chiefly, ones arising from clergy sexual misconduct cases) of the archdiocese. Judge Perris thus joins Judge Patricia Williams (hearing similar cases in Spokane WA) in holding, among other things, and for the time being at least, that bankruptcy law takes precedence over canon law and consequently trumps the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution. How so?
Continue reading over at the "In the Light of the Law" blog.
This is a confusing issue, not least because (presumably) most victims of clergy sexual abuse were or are members of the parishes that are now at risk of being punished. Is a parishioner merely a consumer of the goods and services provided by a parish, or an integral member of the parish community? Wouldn't the closing of a parish hurt the individual victim?
If a father sexually abuses his son, would the court order the house sold, the mother and three siblings turned out onto the street, in order to compensate the victimized son?
It doesn't seem to me that the American legal system has the resources to understand what a parish is, or the relationship of the individual member to the body of the parish.
Posted by: Tom Harmon | Wednesday, January 04, 2006 at 08:42 AM