Churches in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno are set to lose most of their money as part of the bankruptcy settlement with victims who were sexually abused by clergy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Monsignor Perry Kavookjian of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church told his congregation last Sunday that the parish will lose $9.5 million that it had earmarked for a building fund.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Driving the news: Last year, the diocese filed for bankruptcy as it grapples with more than 150 claims of sexual abuse by clergy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The diocese said at the time that the decision to file for bankruptcy ensures that all victims are fairly compensated. Filing for bankruptcy was necessary, the diocese said, to ensure that diocesan resources would not be depleted by the first few cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The big picture: Kavookjian explained to the congregation that parishes are required by the diocese to deposit money earmarked for building funds or other projects into a shared fund.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The diocese previously told its parishes that such money would be protected from seizure in the bankruptcy settlement, but did not take adequate measures to separate those funds from the general fund, Kavookjian said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That means his parish will lose roughly $9.5 million that it had raised in its building campaign. Kavookjian said the parish is suspending its building campaign and that anyone who donated money for that fund in August can get their money back from the church.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The settlement will ultimately require the diocese to sell various assets \u2013 such as unused properties \u2013 and cash holdings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What he\u2019s saying: \u201cThis news has been a source of great distress among our pastors,\u201d Kavookjian said. \u201cI\u2019ve spoken with several of them already here in Bakersfield who were at a loss to understand how money donated by their parishioners could simply be taken from them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kavookjian expressed concern for parishes in the diocese that have been raising money to build a church, such as Our Lady of Guadalupe Church.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the worst possible outcome for our parish,\u201d Kavookjian said. \u201cIt is a huge disappointment for me and for all of our parishioners who have faithfully contributed to a capital campaign over the years. If this is the outcome of our bankruptcy process, our hopes of a newer and larger church cannot be realized at this time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kavookjian said the parish will take a hard hit but will continue moving forward, while the poorer parishes in the diocese will be hit the hardest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPersonally, I\u2019m saddened and angered about the actions of some bad priests who did unspeakable things,\u201d Kavookjian said. \u201cI know of some people who were hurt by priests, some egregiously, and they are deserving of restitution. But it boggles my mind that such restitution should involve taking money from innocent people who have done good for so many others both in the church and in the larger community. This is the society we live in.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Churches in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno are set to lose most of their money as part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-437755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}