MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Business Journal

Rich Kirchen
Senior Reporter
Milwaukee Business Journal

The Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy case has received national notoriety as the largest of its kind, so why did the archdiocese spend $250,000 to publish legal notices in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and USA Today?

That expenditure was on top of $134,356 the archdiocese devoted in 2011 to publish a legal notice in the same newspapers giving the bar date for filing proofs of claims in the case.

Sunday’s notice, which also appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the largest newspapers in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida, was published to comply with an order signed by the case’s U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Susan Kelley in Milwaukee.

The archdiocese’s insurers required the archdiocese to publish the notices as part of the bankruptcy-case settlement, said Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff for…