A friend sends along the following information out of Rome. I can’t vouch for how accurate it is because I don’t have a second source, but it’s interesting nonetheless. I hope I can verify it soon.
Cardinal Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW for short), has just ruled that the corporation sole model of episcopal ownership of the entire assets of the diocese of which he is the ordinary is contrary to canon law. This is a shocker, for this model of ownership of diocesan property has been in universal use for a century and more. Not the least of its ts results has been to give the local ordinary very deep pockets, a fact of which the plaintiff bar has been well aware and upon which all those law suits have been predicated. It now appears that each parish owns its own property, including bank accounts, which can, but need not, be turned over to the ordinary by the consent of the pastor and his financial council: on this they must agree. Just what the ordinary does own is now doubtful: presumably the parish of which he is the pastor, probably the seminary, and similar diocesan institutions, but all of that is now in issue. I admire the decision, if only because of the despond and alarm it will occasion in the plaintiff bar, a natural ally of and major source of funds for the Democratic Party.
I’m not sure if my friend is referring to the recent decision from the Vatican regarding property in Boston because I don’t think that decision was as sweeping as this email suggests.
