The Bishop of Tucson is saying he may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy because of Scandal lawsuits. This is similar to a tactic taken by the Boston archdiocese under Cardinal Law when it said that the push by lawyers for huge settlements could force the archdiocese to go bankrupt. The lawyers finally agreed that some cash is better than no cash and Boston avoided that. I wonder if the lawyers in Tucson will agree.
They don’t seem to. In fact, they say the diocese isn’t bankrupt if you include the value of parishes and various incorporated charities (which are indeed legally separate, but they don’t seem to care about that legal technicality.) It would be interesting to see what the people of those parishes would have to say about their parishes being liquidated to pay lawyers and some victims multi-million dollar settlements.
May be the best thing that could happen to them.
We’d all be better off, I think, if the church had to plan better to get along. Priorities would be clearer.