New York’s Supreme Court last week dismissed a lawsuit against the Diocese of Buffalo that parishioners from five churches had filed to stop the diocese from requiring them to contribute millions of dollars toward a $150 million clergy sex abuse settlement.
Local news outlet WIVB reported that Judge John DelMonte dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that a decision in favor of either party would violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
“The unique character of this action … inexorably overwhelms all other issues and compels a review of the threshold issue of whether this Court has any measure of jurisdiction in the first instance to examine and intervene in a matter stemming from a hierarchal church,” Judge Delmonte wrote in part.
CatholicVote previously reported that the parishioners had filed the lawsuit after the diocese directed them to contribute up to $80 million of the settlement. The parishes argued that meeting the payment requirements would render them “unable to adequately function and serve their community.” They also claimed that since they were waiting for the Vatican to decide on appeals related to parish mergers, they cannot pay into the settlement until they know which parishes will be combined.
DelMonte temporarily froze the requirement for the parishes to begin paying into the settlement in July.
According to WIVB, the diocese said that it is “pleased that Judge Delmonte has concluded that the Bishop of the Diocese of Buffalo, indeed, maintains the authority for decisions that clearly involve matters specific to the operations of parishes and broader considerations that bear on the Catholic Church of Western New York.”
WIVB also reported that the Vatican recently overruled the diocese’s previous plans to sell a parish for profit. Save Our Buffalo Churches, a group aimed at keeping churches in the diocese from being closed or merged, said in a statement to WIVB that the Vatican’s decree possibly signals it will later decide that parishes cannot be forced to help with the diocese’s bankruptcy payments.
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