MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune
By Peter Passi on Feb 5, 2016
Creditors’ attorneys attempted to pick apart the finances of the Catholic Diocese of Duluth at a hearing Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
The diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December, about one month after a St. Paul jury ordered it to pay nearly $4.9 million in damages to a man who was sexually abused by a priest in Itasca County. The decision stems from the sexual abuse the man endured as an altar boy more than 35 years ago at the hands of the late Rev. J. Vincent Fitzgerald.
Franz Hoefferle, the finance director for the diocese, on Friday told Sarah Wencil, an attorney for the U.S. Trustee’s Office: “There was a judgment rendered against the diocese that we felt we could not pay.”
He said the diocese typically breaks even on an annual budget that is based on operating revenues of about $3.5 million.
Hoefferle said that as of November, the diocese had net assets of a little more than $5 million and total liabilities of just over $12 million.
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