Bishop Vasa: hero or heel? - Back Burner - Bishop Robert F. Vasa of Baker Oregon

Oregon circuit Judge Michael Adler ruled May 14 that Bishop Robert F. Vasa of Baker, a largely-rural diocese in eastern Oregon, can transfer legal ownership of parish properties to the parishes despite pending multimillion dollar sexual abuse lawsuits against the diocese. According to a Catholic News Service report, Bishop Vasa testified that under the prevailing practice, the bishop is technically incorporated as the sole legal owner of a diocese. Parishioners are decreasing their contributions, fearing diocesan funds could be depleted through possible court settlements. To stem the financial loss, the bishop had recourse to canon law and a decree of the Vatican's Congregation of the Council (29 July, 1911), preferring that title to United States church properties be vested in a board of trustees as a legal form replacing the corporation sole model.

Judge Adler's ruling has been opposed by the plaintiff's attorney David Slader who sought a freeze on diocesan assets. The judge, however, found the plaintiffs failed to show "any fraudulent purpose" on the part of Bishop Vasa's move and allowed his creation of some 60 separate corporations in documents filed with the Oregon secretary of state last October.

Serious questions abound. Is the bishop's tactic a principled conversion to the teaching of subsidiarity within the church, respecting the theological and governance rights of all Catholics as taught by Pope Pius XI in his 1931 social encyclical: Quadragesimo Anno? Or is it a pragmatic ploy to evade legal responsibilities by shielding church assets from those morally and civilly entitled to benefit from them in compensation for crimes of abuse? Is Bishop Vast a latter-day hero defending parishioners' subsidiary rights or an artful dodger sidestepping compensatory justice in a scheme smacking of an ecclesiastical shell game?

A fundamental question may provide a clue to an answer. Would Bishop Vasa had seen the light of subsidiarity if abuse claims had not been brought against the diocese? It seems not, in view of his own admission that the diocese was now losing money under the corporation sole proviso and needed to find an arrangement more attractive to donors.

A deeper question demands to know how the Vatican 1911 canonical provisions could possibly stand up to the Second Vatican council era's recognition of the rights of the People of God across the spectrum of our lives. For example, the 1911 provision concerning lay trustees was in tune with regulations laid down by the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884 requiring that their appointment be controlled by the local bishop and revocable at his will. Furthermore, the trustees should be "men" who send their children to Catholic schools.

Most pertinently given the erection of Bishop Vasa's 60 parish corporations replacing the corporation sole model of administration, how will they respond to the eventual legal obligation to pay damages to abuse victims? Or are they so constituted as to avoid it?

How will other American bishops respond to Vasa's strategy? Will they regard this tectonic shift in the church's administrative structure as destructive of their accustomed monopolistic power over the exchequer, an isolated quirk of a spooked fellow bishop; or welcome it as implementing fuller diocesan responsibility and accountability? What will be the overriding Vatican judgment sure to come?

Will there be Canadian aftershocks? The admired Sister Marie Zarowny, who headed the Canadian Bishops' negotiating team on the abuse of aboriginal children rejects the government's demand that the national Roman Catholic community assume some responsibility for the liabilities of any affiliated organizations that may be found guilty of abuse. She contends this is "impossible because the church has no national organization or centralized structure." Yet the country's Anglican and Presbyterian churches, more decentralized than the Catholic Church, have seen their way clear to accepting such responsibility.

Clearly, creative new approaches are imperative to resolve the interlocking moral and legal commitments. Is Bishop Vasa the church's bellwether or rash spoiler?

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