Almost everything has to be sold. Hundreds of properties from 34 parishes will be liquidated, including the towering Basilica of Sts. John the Baptist, the second largest Catholic church in the country.
The Archdiocese of St. John faces a staggering bill – more than $ 50 million – to compensate survivors of sexual abuse at the former Mount Cashel Orphanage, one of the first major pedophilia scandals to shake the Roman Catholic Church in Canada.
The archbishopric has no money. The Vatican is not intervening to help. This means that thousands of parishioners may soon lose the churches they believe they own.
“I don’t understand,” Jerome Fenelli said after what may have been the last Easter Mass at the Church of the Holy Rosary in Cove, Portugal, where he worshiped for 62 years.
“This house, this church, the church hall was built by the parishioners in this parish and the Archbishopric of St. Can John just come in here and take her and sell her? I don’t understand it at all. “
Parishioners like Fennelly have until June 2 to submit an offer to buy back their church. Other parishes will soon face the same clear choice.
On the one hand, the archdiocese has already seized almost all parish savings, so if worshipers want to buy their church, they have to start from scratch. On the other hand, if they throw away the towel, they risk not having a place to worship. All other churches in the area are also on the market.
This is a precarious situation for many Catholics, but the legal explanation is simple. In 2019, the Court of Appeals of Newfoundland and Labrador ruled that the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of St. John, the secular part of the archdiocese, was indirectly responsible for sexual violence on Mount Cashel in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
Add Comment