A federal judge this month rejected a request from the Diocese of Oakland, California to resolve its ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, arguing that the diocese had not satisfied statutory requirements to do so while dismissing claims that the diocese should be granted a special religious dispensation.
The diocese had proposed a plan earlier in the year to pay more than $200 million into an abuse victims’ fund. A committee of survivors countered with a proposed payout of more than $300 million, which the diocese itself subsequently opposed.
Judge William Lafferty said in an Oct. 2 decision that the diocese had failed to demonstrate that it was undergoing a “substantial burden” on its religious rights in being required to adhere to federal bankruptcy proceedings.
The judge dismissed as “incorrect and impossible” a scenario suggested by the diocese that would result in what Lafferty described as an “apocalyptic forced sale of all churches in the Oakland Diocese” under the federal bankruptcy court.
Such a scheme, Lafferty said, “can never be compelled in the bankruptcy system.”
Lafferty also expressed concern that the diocese’s “liquidation analyses” are “structured in a manner that tilts the playing field” in favor of the diocese itself.
The federal judge admitted that the ruling was “not a happy result” for anyone involved in the trial, including for abuse victims, who he said have been “deeply … immersed” in the trial since 2023.
The diocese, meanwhile, “has prosecuted this case honorably and with great integrity,” he said.
The judge urged the diocese and abuse victims to operate with “continuing dialogue and relentless good faith.”
“There is no guarantee of success in such endeavors, but also no reason not to begin again,” he said.
In a statement after the ruling, Oakland Bishop Michael Barber, SJ, described the decision as “a setback,” but he said the diocese remains “committed to providing fair and equitable treatment” for abuse victims while “continuing our mission to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in service to the 500,000 faithful Catholics in our community.”
The diocese would “study the court’s decision,” Barber said, before deciding how to move forward.
The diocese was in the news earlier this year after a California man was awarded a massive $16 million in a civil abuse suit there.
The ruling — rare for U.S. diocesan abuse cases, where most settlements involve groups of abuse victims rather than individual plaintiffs — represented the first jury verdict reached under the 2019 California Child Victims Act, which opened up a three-year look-back window for abuse victims to bring civil suits.
The allegations brought by the John Doe in the Oakland case concerned Father Stephen Kiesle, a priest who has faced multiple abuse allegations dating from the 1970s. The victim said Kiesle abused him during that decade.
From EWTN News
Most of the abuse happened before Bishops Vigneron, Cordileone and Barber served there. It was perpetrated by homosexual priests (of the diocese and religious orders). The issue of “gay” priests needs to be addressed. It’s a costly and severely harmful evil in the Church. Hopefully, the stranglehold on Bay Area dioceses by the lavender mafia is being broken. Yet, that hasn’t been seen yet in San Jose, the most “gay-friendly” diocese in the US, according to a local newspaper. It’s a diocese where Courage and EnCourage still have to meet underground and aren’t permitted to advertise their ministries, which help those with same-sex attraction and their families. Please pray for all the victims of these wolves in shepherds’ clothing.
If the diocese has to sell properties to meet its settlement financial obligations, so be it. Time to face the music. You don’t get special treatment because you’re a religious entity, just as the judge explained. Due to decline in attendance and affiliation, parishes are going to have to be closed and sold in the diocese anyway.
This is one of those dioceses that is a total mess. I bet Bishop Barber wishes his retirement were just around the corner.
How sad that the churches paid for and built by faithful Catholics decades ago will be sold off to pay for gay priests diddling young boys.
The saddest thing is that many descendants of those faithful Catholics still don’t get the connection between homosexual vice (and their own vices like contraception) and these closings.
The Church still hasn’t learned. It’s still full gay ahead.
As far as I’m concerned, the Church deserves all the suffering it gets because of what its bishops and priests did.
And I as a layman will not contribute to assist in the payouts. Bishops should have to retire in poverty and eat Ramen instead of living in lavish mansions.
In the Catholic news, lately, there have been some clerical and lay Church leaders at the Synod on Synodality who are advocating for the Church to “welcome” and accommodate non-traditional families, and couples in irregular unions– cohabitation, LGBTQ relationships, new trends in genders, single mothers, some with kids and boyfriends; divorced/remarried without annulments, all sorts of non-traditional “families.” How about polygamy? African bishops have said that polygamy is very common in Africa, and hard to change. What a big mess. What on earth are they going to accomplish this week, at the 10th anniversary of the Synod on Synodality?
This is 100% the outcome of Vatican II and the New Springtime! Closed Catholic churches, convents, seminaries, hospitals, schools, Mass attendance at 10% compared to 75% in 1965, but Heaven forbid let the TLM return with standing room only, children and young people in attendance, the F.S.P.P. Institute of Christ the King and the S.S.P.X. seminaries with men on waiting lists just to get in!! So the big question is what is Rome so afraid of if TLM Catholics are a TINY section of the Church???? We believe in all the tenants of the Faith, we go to Mass weekly and yet we are persona non grata in the eyes of Rome, they fear us with a passion yet perversion, the Pachamama, dancing girls, altar girls, communion in the hand while standing, drums, guitars, pianos, lay people handing out Holy Communion, lay lectors, rock, mariachi, jazz, Mayan, music is ALL just fine with Rome as the Church crumbles.