For Immediate Release:  June 15, 2005

Contacts:  Peter Borré, 617-448-3850, pxb3@rcn.com

COUNCIL OF PARISHES LETTER ASKS BISHOP SKYLSTAD TO REAFFIRM THE RIGHTS OF PARISHES UNDER CANON LAW  

( Boston ) — The Council of Parishes today released a letter signed by its Co-Chairs and sent yesterday to Bishop William Skylstad of the Diocese of Spokane, in his capacity as President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.  The letter requests Bishop Skylstad to use the opportunity of the Bishop’s conference to reaffirm the rights of parishes and parishioners under Canon Law, or church law, as the law pertains to ownership of parish property, assets, and gifts.  The conference meets in Chicago this week.

The Council letter states that the reconfiguration process underway in the Archdiocese of Boston, involving the closing of dozens of parishes by the archdiocese, “is in direct violation of canon law,” because under canon law the parish property is not the property of the diocese or the bishop (Canon 1256).  In support of this position:

Ø     The Council’s letter refers to affidavits recently filed by Bishop Skylstad himself and by his canon lawyer, Nicholas Cafardi, in the bankruptcy proceeding involving the bishop’s own diocese; these affidavits state in the strongest terms that bishops do not own parishes, and that parish assets cannot be used to settle debts of the diocese, a practice “abhorrent to the Canon Law.” (Cafardi affidavit, paragraph 40)

Ø     The Council’s letter includes a Supplement to a canonical appeal recently filed in Rome with the Congregation of the Clergy by one of the Council members, a group from the Infant Jesus/St. Lawrence Parish in Brookline , MA .

Ø     The supplement to the Council’s letter quotes Dean Cafardi’s statement (Cafardi affidavit, paragraph 45),

o      “A diocesan bishop is subject to the Code of Canon Law in the same way that every Catholic is subject.  Should a diocesan bishop violate these canons, he is subject to penalties for these violations, including the penalty of loss of ecclesiastical office.”

  The Council urges Bishop Skylstad to “issue a clear policy statement reaffirming the conclusions set out in your and Dean Cafardi’s affidavits,” and to “seek the intervention of the Holy See to protect the rights of parishes to a stable existence.”

Copies of this letter and attachment have been sent to the Prefect of the Congregation of the Clergy in Rome , to the Papal Pro-Nuncio to the United States of America in Washington , D.C. , and to the Archbishop of Boston.  The Council of Parishes consists of 15 Boston-area parishioner groups as members, and five observer groups.  The Council was formed last fall in response to the flawed parish reconfiguration process designed and executed by the Archbishop of Boston.