Cardinal Law of Boston was deposed yesterday; he says that his diocese cannot afford to pay a $30 million settlement with victoims of former priest/abuser John Geoghan.
So, what happens next? Can the RC Church be sued, and a lien placed upon the Vatican?
Also, and interesting aside…the legal definition of “is” (once re-defined by ex-pres Clinton) is now in dispute:
(FROM the BOSTON GLOBE):
"``When I first saw those words - `this settlement is’ - I thought I’d be moving on with my life at last,’’ said Mark Keane, a New Hampshire father of three whose claims against Geoghan are among the most ghastly on file in the case.
I was taught English,'' he said. I thought I knew what `is’ is.’’
So, lawyers-exactly what does “is” mean? I’m confused:confused:
They can’t go after the Vatican. I don’t think they can even go after the “American” RCC. Each diocese is incorporated, separately. (This is the reason that the rulings of the National Council of Catholic Bishops from 1989 and 1993 were ignored by Law and others–it is a loose association on independent entities.)
Law, of course, is demonstrating the evasive dishonesty that has begun to characterize all of his comments. I certainly read his first statements, last Spring, as an agreement to the settlement. That does not mean that it was. Nothing is real until the paperwork has been filed with the Clerk of Courts.
If he can establish in court that his agreement was only to the concept of a settlement, subject to the financial capacity of the diocese to support it, and his accountants then pointed out that the diocese could not support it, he may get past this particular court. If he does, I would suspect that the plaintiffs will withdraw from the current suit and go after the diocese on an individual basis, demanding much more money along with the additional costs of multiple trials.
While ‘is’ certainly has a meaning, it cannot be divined in this case without more than the three words: The settlement is.
This Boston Globe article doesn’t quote The settlement is; instead, it recounts a portion of Law’s questioner, Mitchell Garabedian, asking as follows:
Law’s response, also detailed in the article, is that he believe the settlement would not be final until it had been accepted by both the victims and the sixteen named defendants.
So, to answer this General Question, is is the present tense of the verb to be; it means to equal in meaning, to have the same connotation as, to have identity with, to constitute the same class as. I am not sure how your example of Cardinal Law’s comments would apply to this question, however.
Sorry - the real GQ was the liability of the Vatican and the other churches, I see now upon reading tomndebb’s answer. I missed that in my myopic fascination on what the OP characterized as an aside.
As usual, tomndebb is right on the mark. Each diocese is an individual corporation; liability for acts or omissions of one do not extend to another, and certainly not to the Vatican. There is, in other words, no such corporate “person” as “The RC Church.”
tomndebb are probably right, but I really hope not. I’ve seen other posts here about setting up independent corporate entities to limit the liability of a larger institution. And comments about courts “piercing the corporate veil” in order to get at the real culprits, and real assets, of the parent body. If there are situations where this can be done, surely the sexual abuses and coverup situations, perpetrated over decades on a nationwide (more accurately world-wide) basis, merit such “piercing”.
The idea that the RC church us composed of independent dioceses(sp?) is pretty ridiculous, given the level of control the Vatican has over them, IMHO.
I haven’t seen anything that would indicate that what happened in the Boston Archdiocese was was the result of decisions made at any level higher than Cardinal Law. As far as I can tell, there is no reason to believe that the archdiocese was not autonomous in this regard.
Actually, the control is carried out by ensuring that they pick bishops whose views are closely parallel to those of the Curia. There have been a very few cases of direct intervention by the Vatican in the affairs of diocese around the world, but they are far from common (and are much more likely to involve theological issues rather than economic or political ones).
Whether this is a good thing (Vatican orders all diocese to do the right thing regarding the victims of pedophiles) or a bad thing (Vatican orders firing of all employees who have admitted using birth control or advocated that celibacy be optional) is open to a different debate.
It may be in the interest of the Justice Department to attempt to “pierce the veil,” but it will be impossible to establish that the independent diocese were established for the purpose of limiting liability.
The diocese are independent because they have been independent since the early middle ages–and perhaps since the establishment of an organized church. The Church does recognize Provinces and and National associations, but those are established to identify where papal legates will be assigned and provide for interim management in the case of a vacancy of an episcopal seat. The organization far predates English Common Law or any other legal protocols that would have a bearing on corporations. The church incorporated diocese (when corporations were first introduced to Law) to keep the existing church structure in line with new secular legal structures. The diocese were not created to take advantage of corporate law.
tom, this isn’t completely accurate. A settlement is a contract; parties can ask the court to demand enforcement of a settlement agreement even if the settlement was never filed with the court. In fact, many confidential settlement agreements are never filed with the court - the court papers in those cases simply move that the case be dismissed “pursuant to a settlement reached by the parties.”
The hearings described in bricker’s linked article are to determine precisely that - whether a valid and binding contract was formed.
I would think that the supposed separate nature of the entities is a legal fiction that could be set aside to get at the body that has effective control. The Pope appoints everybody and can dismiss everybody. My understanding of the law is that when that much control is exercized that you can go all the way up the chain of command to enforce a judgment.
I don’t think this really matters. I’m not very knowledgable about the Catholic Church, but during all this foolishness, I read in an article that the only oath a Cardinal takes to become a Cardinal is to make sure nothing besmurges the Church. Anyone recognize or have a cite for that?
If that IS true (and I believe I remember it acurately - I’ll try to look it up), doesn’t that mean that Law was under a direct order from the Vatican to make sure nothing ever got out about the molestations?
I’ve been waiting months for this thread. I’m extraordinarily interested to find out exactly what the factual answer is to the question posed in this quote. mandielise, thank you for asking it. Surely a bit of ignorance can be fought here by a totally accurate answer, supplied by one of our more astute Dopers.
Does a Cardinal take this oath, and exactly what is the English translation of said oath, word for word?
It’s not as specific as I had remembered - there’s no direct assertion that they’ll do illegal things if necessary to keep honor in the Church. However, it IS stated that they will do everything in their power to maintain the honor of the Church. What do y’all think of all this?
The authors of that web page certainly have their agenda, as is evident upon full reading of the link provided above.
However…if that quote of the Cardinals’ Oath is completely word-on accurate, then this single quote
is deeply chilling. It is found at the bottom of the first paragraph of the Oath. ( I don’t wish to incur the Mod’s Wrath and so refuse to copy and paste anything more involved than that one phrase.
sailor, I didn’t read that part, I skipped to the Catholic segment. My bad. I figured they wouldn’t quote something that was inaccurate (maybe I should try not to do that myself, huh?).
The interaction between the church and secular aspects of religious corporations in the United States is interesting. I’ve actually had to research church schism law in New York for a project once.
Courts make a careful distinction between the religous aspects of a church, which the courts and other governmental entities cannot interfere with under the First Amendment, and the property ownership and other “business” aspects of a church.
In New York, under the chapter of the Religious Corporation Law relating to the Roman Catholic church, an individual parish church can be incorporated with the participation of the appropriate bishop. Presumably, the diocese would be likewise incorporated. The New York Religious Corporation Law has similar provisions for most other hierarchical church organizations.
If there is a judgment against a religious corporation, or a religious corporation goes into bankruptcy, the creditors could levy against the property owned by the religious corporation (i.e. foreclose on the cathedral). However, the courts could not interfere with the religious functioning of the church or its officials.
So, if there were to be a judgment against the Boston Archdiocese, all Archdiocesean property could be taken, but the Archdiocese could still operate as a religious entity.
I’m sorry, mandieliese, but that whole “oath” was invented out of whole cloth by some Catholic-basher. Note all the references to “Holy Roman Church” and “our Lord Pope”? That language would never appear in an actual Catholic ceremony or document. The closest church prayers and references come to that are when Catholics pray to the Lord* for “our Holy Father in Rome” (and the “in Rome” is usually omitted, itself).
Here is the actual PROFESSION OF FAITH and THE OATH OF FIDELITY ON ASSUMING AN OFFICE TO BE EXERCISED IN THE NAME OF THE CHURCH from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith prescribed for nearly all offices in the Church. There may be a variant of this that is particular to the Cardinals, but only Ian Paiseley, Jimmy Swaggart, and their ilk still believe that the Cardinals are joining some secret, murderous cabal. (Remember, the Profession and Oath are given publicly in St. Peter’s Basilica in front of several thousand people. Even if it is delivered in Latin, some Latin-speaking reporter would have exposed it rather long before this.)
*(Lord=God, the RCC is not following Debrett’s Correct Form of addressing the peerage when it composes prayers and oaths.)
