Cardinal to sell off Archdiocesan property?
Today's edition of the Los Angeles Times has an article (click on this post's title), "Scandal could force [C]hurch to sell property."
The article says, "A Times analysis has found that the archdiocese is the recorded owner of one of the biggest real estate portfolios in Southern California — at least 1,600 properties with an estimated value of about $4 billion. What the nation's most-populous Catholic jurisdiction might be willing to sell, however, is likely to feed an ongoing debate within the church over who controls parish property — the prelates governing the institution or the parishioners."
Some of the property is not churches and schools, fortunately. But what do you bet that, as in Boston and elsewhere, the Cardinal will close parishes, especially the ones with the most traditionally Catholic churches and the most traditonal parishioners?
The Times article also has an insightful quote from a valiant defender of the faithful:
"'The bishops say, "No, we don't own the parishes," when it comes to fending off a bankruptcy, but "Yes, we do own them," when they want to close them down,' said Charles Wilson, executive director of the St. Joseph Foundation, a conservative parishioners' rights group that has fought, largely unsuccessfully, 89 parish closures since the 1980s."
Presumably, many of the 1,600 Archdiocesan properties that the Times article mentions were willed or deeded to the Church by faithful Catholics who wanted the properties used to benefit their fellow Catholics in the years to come and to keep the Church in Los Angeles strong.
Those noble intentions do not exactly square with selling off the properties to make scandal payouts and, perhaps, to keep the Cardinal and his aides off the witness stand as well as free from facing the potential music, criminal and civil, over possible coverups and other derelictions.
The article says, "A Times analysis has found that the archdiocese is the recorded owner of one of the biggest real estate portfolios in Southern California — at least 1,600 properties with an estimated value of about $4 billion. What the nation's most-populous Catholic jurisdiction might be willing to sell, however, is likely to feed an ongoing debate within the church over who controls parish property — the prelates governing the institution or the parishioners."
Some of the property is not churches and schools, fortunately. But what do you bet that, as in Boston and elsewhere, the Cardinal will close parishes, especially the ones with the most traditionally Catholic churches and the most traditonal parishioners?
The Times article also has an insightful quote from a valiant defender of the faithful:
"'The bishops say, "No, we don't own the parishes," when it comes to fending off a bankruptcy, but "Yes, we do own them," when they want to close them down,' said Charles Wilson, executive director of the St. Joseph Foundation, a conservative parishioners' rights group that has fought, largely unsuccessfully, 89 parish closures since the 1980s."
Presumably, many of the 1,600 Archdiocesan properties that the Times article mentions were willed or deeded to the Church by faithful Catholics who wanted the properties used to benefit their fellow Catholics in the years to come and to keep the Church in Los Angeles strong.
Those noble intentions do not exactly square with selling off the properties to make scandal payouts and, perhaps, to keep the Cardinal and his aides off the witness stand as well as free from facing the potential music, criminal and civil, over possible coverups and other derelictions.
posted by Quintero at 3:32 PM
7 Comments:
Hi,
It may be good if they close schools. Then everyone would have to home school, unless they trully don't care about their kids and send them to public school.
John
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hoodlum - that's the FMV, not the original purchase price. Welcome to SoCal real estate.
JOSEPH D'HIPPOLITO SAYS...
I really have no doubt that God is using the clerical sex-abuse scandals to scourge a Church that has fallen all too much in love with temporal power and influence. This situation is a test not only for Mahony and the Archdiocese, but for the Church as a whole. What does it really value, God or its own collective arrogance?
Unfortunately, all too often, we know what the answer was -- and will be in Mahony's case.
Yeah, but watch out, John-
In Germany and other countries it's now ILLEGAL to homeschool- lest the young scholars grow up with for one example a warped view of human sexuality not in line with state teaching etc...
yes parents are going to jail for homeschooling.
"But kamerad, if you have nothing to hide why do you not send your children to school?"
Dear John and Dave,
Have you visited the website of the Alliance for the Separation of School and State? They have some good ideas. It's at:
http://www.schoolandstate.org/home.htm
Dear Everyone,
We need the purity, holiness, strength and integrity of the Faith as lived by the shepherds and Wise Men at Bethlehem and by our fellow Catholics today in the persecuted underground Church.
We definitely need an aversion to worldly power and influence.
But that does not mean we may let the atheist-secular enemies of Holy Mother Church plunder Her.
Almighty God deserves beautiful churches, and the Catholic faithful deserve to worship in churches fitting for that purpose.
Many good Catholics have willed property to the Church, so the Church may have income and so She may have sites suitable for new parishes, schools, hospitals and other places where good is done. That is for the Gospel, not against it.
Post a Comment
<< Home