MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

01/17/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

Charles Dickens was quick to note that ‘the dense fog is densest’ and the mud is ‘muddiest’ at ‘the very heart of the fog’, which he identified as the High Court of Chancery. ‘Chancery’, in his sense and in mine, becomes somewhat of a double entendre. For, I think that anyone who watched the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis press conference yesterday afternoon (filmed from the Saint Paul Chancery) will agree that there was ‘fog everywhere’, and very little sun.

Neither the press conferences nor the documents filed as part of the Archdiocese’s petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection shed much light on the current situation of the Archdiocese- financially, morally, or otherwise. However, a close reading of the documents, and in particular the ‘Application of the Debtor to Employ Chapter 11 Counsel’ does raise some interesting questions.

1). How much has…