Facing more clergy abuse lawsuits, Vermont's Catholic Church files for bankruptcy
Vermont’s Catholic church has filed for bankruptcy protection as it faces more than 30 lawsuits alleging child sex abuse by clergy decades ago, according to a filing in federal bankruptcy court.
Since 2006, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington, the state's only diocese, has settled 67 lawsuits for a total of $34 million, Bishop John McDermott said in the court filing on Monday.
Celeste Laramie, an attorney representing about a third of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits, said the filing "is more reflective of moral bankruptcy than actual financial bankruptcy, particularly in light of the estimated $500 million of assets it has attempted to hide from survivors of its sexual abuse.”
“For decades the Burlington Diocese covered up horrific sexual abuse of generations of Vermont’s children by sexual predators it employed as priests,” Laramie said in a statement on Tuesday. "Rather than atoning for its sins in the wave of lawsuits filed since 2019, the Burlington Diocese has instead spent well over a million dollars in the last five years alone on lawyers in an effort to avoid judgments and responsibility—all while continuing to solicit weekly donations from its parishioners.”
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/faci...-114394007
Vermont’s Catholic church has filed for bankruptcy protection as it faces more than 30 lawsuits alleging child sex abuse by clergy decades ago, according to a filing in federal bankruptcy court.
Since 2006, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington, the state's only diocese, has settled 67 lawsuits for a total of $34 million, Bishop John McDermott said in the court filing on Monday.
Celeste Laramie, an attorney representing about a third of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits, said the filing "is more reflective of moral bankruptcy than actual financial bankruptcy, particularly in light of the estimated $500 million of assets it has attempted to hide from survivors of its sexual abuse.”
“For decades the Burlington Diocese covered up horrific sexual abuse of generations of Vermont’s children by sexual predators it employed as priests,” Laramie said in a statement on Tuesday. "Rather than atoning for its sins in the wave of lawsuits filed since 2019, the Burlington Diocese has instead spent well over a million dollars in the last five years alone on lawyers in an effort to avoid judgments and responsibility—all while continuing to solicit weekly donations from its parishioners.”
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/faci...-114394007
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
