UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
William D. Lindsey
Before we left for our recent vacation, I made a promise here, I seem to recall, to read and comment on the 22 May affidavit of Jennifer Haselberger, former Chancellor for Canonical Affairs of the Catholic archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis. The affidavit is Haselberger’s testimony in the bankruptcy case of the archdiocese now pending in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Minnesota (case no. 15-30125).
I believe it was Mary Q, a good reader of this blog, who pointed me to this document, which is uploaded to the website (pdf file) of Jeff Anderson, who is representing abuse survivors suing the archdiocese. At her blog, Haselberger wrote about the affidavit the day after she made it. As she explains in this posting, she testified in support of “substantive consolidation.” She explains:
Substantive consolidation is an equitable remedy available to bankruptcy courts whereby the assets of entities closely related to the debtor, in this case the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, are combined into the bankruptcy estate.
At the heart of a motion for substantive consolidation is the question of equity and fairness. American law does not allow a corporation like the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis to misuse the benefits of the separate corporate forms of, say, parishes or foundations, to unfairly deprive creditors like the victims of sexual abuse by clergy. In other words, the test for whether substantive consolidation is appropriate in a given case is determined by the degree of interrelatedness between the entities to be consolidated and the parent organization.
And then she provides four reasons for why she supports a motion for substantive consolidation in this case:
1. “The request to consolidate does not include Catholic Charities or Commonbond Communities.” And so these Catholic, but quasi-independent entities doing works of mercy, will not be pulled into a bankruptcy settlement requiring that the archdiocese itself bear responsibility for having covered up sexual abuse cases, and can continue doing their works of mercy without penalization.
2. “The request seeks to make more assets available to compensate the victims of sexual abuse of minors by clergy.” And why is this necessary? “I believe we cannot turn a blind eye to the harm and suffering experienced by those individuals, most of whom are or were members of our Catholic community, to preserve advantages for others.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.