{"id":5348,"date":"2006-10-11T09:52:25","date_gmt":"2006-10-11T09:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/chapter-11-part-d.html"},"modified":"2006-10-11T09:52:25","modified_gmt":"2006-10-11T09:52:25","slug":"chapter-11-part-d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/10\/chapter-11-part-d.html","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 11, Part D"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>The Diocese of Davenport files for bankruptcy<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Catholic Diocese of Davenport filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday afternoon, effectively putting 25 claims of sexual abuse by priests in the hands of a judge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI and the leadership of the diocese believe that, as difficult as this decision is, it provides the best opportunity for healing and for the just and fair compensation of those who have suffered sexual abuse by clergy in our diocese, those who have come forward and those who have not yet decided to come forward,\u201d Bishop William Franklin said in a news release issued late Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Just before 5 p.m., diocese representatives also filed papers seeking protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The documents were filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of Iowa. Franklin said a reorganization plan also will be filed for consideration by creditors and the court.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have searched for ways to adequately respond to the 25 outstanding claims of sexual abuse against Monsignor Thomas Feeney, William F. Wiebler and Monsignor Carl H. Meinberg and retired Bishop Lawrence D. Soens, all of which occurred 30 to 40 years ago,\u201d Franklin said. \u201cBecause the settlement demands are greater than the available assets of the diocese, we cannot continue on our present path.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franklin said he made the decision after consulting with the Diocese of Davenport Corporate Board and Finance Council, the College of Consultors, diocesan directors and diocese attorneys.<\/p>\n

Spokesman Deacon David Montgomery said the bankruptcy does not affect any of the parishes or schools within the diocese.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach is separately incorporated,\u201d he said. \u201cWe won\u2019t know about its effects on employees until a reorganization plan has been drawn up and approved by the creditors and court.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

One of the major under-the-radar sexual abuse stories is the matter of the lawsuits filed against retired Bishop of Sioux City Lawrence Soens. <\/a>Soens is accused of abuse during his tenure as principal of Regina High School in Iowa City in the early 1960’s.  Trials related to the charges were schedule to begin on October 23, but the story above indicates that the bankruptcy filing might change that. Here are documents filed in the lawsuit, including many sworn statements from students at Regina during that time as well as excerpts from Soens’ depositions in which he admits to some behavior, denies some and says he can’t remember some.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Diocese of Davenport files for bankruptcy The Catholic Diocese of Davenport filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday afternoon, effectively putting 25 claims of sexual abuse by priests in the hands of a judge. \u201cI and the leadership of the diocese believe that, as difficult as this decision is, it provides the best opportunity for healing…<\/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-5348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nChapter 11, Part D - 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\/2006\/10\/chapter-11-part-d.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chapter 11, Part D - 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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\/5348","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=5348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}