{"id":2679,"date":"2005-09-07T09:23:37","date_gmt":"2005-09-07T09:23:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/who-owns-the-parish.html"},"modified":"2005-09-07T09:23:37","modified_gmt":"2005-09-07T09:23:37","slug":"who-owns-the-parish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/who-owns-the-parish.html","title":{"rendered":"Who owns the parish?"},"content":{"rendered":"

More on the issue in this week’s NCR.<\/a> <\/p>\n

The article offers a quick survey of the different approaches dioceses are taking in regard to bankruptcy, assets and ownership issues. It’s very confusing. [the issue, not the article.] <\/em>But the bottom line?<\/p>\n

\n
\n

The church, said Gerdano, \u201chasn\u2019t been consistent and they haven\u2019t been diligent about observing corporate formalities.\u201d Further, given the risks, the decision to seek bankruptcy protection was \u201cfundamentally misguided.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCatholic churches have no business putting themselves voluntarily under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court,\u201d said Gerdano. \u201cThey did this to themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There’s another piece, looking at the issue historically, particulary in light of the trusteeism controversy, but…it’s only available to subscribers and our friend Jimmy Mac hasn’t checked his email yet, I guess!<\/p>\n

I think this is an issue that really could use a basic FAQ\/Q&A treatment, for those of us who are interested and concerned but fundamentally confused, as well.<\/p>\n

FYI, there is a newsletter called Church Bankruptcy News – <\/a>the linked piece is their initial offering from 7\/04, with more information on the site how to subscribe.  (Along with other corporate bankruptcy updates, in case you’re interested.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More on the issue in this week’s NCR. The article offers a quick survey of the different approaches dioceses are taking in regard to bankruptcy, assets and ownership issues. It’s very confusing. [the issue, not the article.] But the bottom line? The church, said Gerdano, \u201chasn\u2019t been consistent and they haven\u2019t been diligent about observing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nWho owns the parish? - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/09\/who-owns-the-parish.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Who owns the parish? - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"More on the issue in this week’s NCR. The article offers a quick survey of the different approaches dioceses are taking in regard to bankruptcy, assets and ownership issues. It’s very confusing. [the issue, not the article.] But the bottom line? 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}