(LifeSiteNews) — The Catholic diocese of Ogdensburg, New York, has filed for bankruptcy, as Bishop Terry LaValley publicly announced on July 17, 2023.
With its filing, the Ogdensburg diocese became the sixth of eight dioceses in New York to file bankruptcy due to sex abuse claims. Much of that burden was added due to the changes in New York state law that overset the statute of limitations. The diocese has 138 claims still open that will now be included together in the settlement.
Only the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn in New York have not filed for bankruptcy protection following the more liberal timeframes for the statutes of limitations.
“Between August 2019 and August 2021, when the Child Victims Act window was open, 138 lawsuits, previously barred by the statute of limitations, were filed against the diocese, parishes and other related Catholic entities,” said Bishop LaValley in his letter. “These lawsuits relate to incidents that allegedly happened decades ago, prior to the institution of our current safe environment policies and procedures.”
Bishop LaValley also notes that over the past 3 years, the diocese has resolved 14 of the 138 new claims,
“We have come to realize that reorganization is the best context for resolving the remaining claims while continuing our mission as a diocese,” he wrote.
The bishop also writes that the new reorganization will establish “a process for all claims to be treated fairly” while resolving the claims in a single court in what he calls “a timely and efficient manner.”
Whether or not the plaintiffs believe that this will result in them being treated “fairly” remains to be seen.
This unfortunate scenario has played out in 30 U.S. dioceses since 2004. Catholic dioceses have had to undergo and complete the process of reorganization to keep their doors open due to financial bankruptcy caused by what they and the media continually attribute to child sexual abuse as well as by unfavorable new civil legislation. The diocesan narratives are also usually couched in assurances that the majority of the alleged incidents happened prior to the implementation of their safe environment programs for children. But who are the vast majority of the abuse victims? Were they pre-pubescent children when the abuse occurred? And what is the profile of the vast majority of the abusers? Heterosexual laymen?
Is this temporal bankruptcy an indication perhaps of a broader problem? Could the issue, just maybe, be the result of a spiritual torpor that has been playing out in the West since 1965? Could this torpor have been caused by an event in Church history and subsequent steps taken by Church leadership to initiate and hasten a spiritual bankruptcy? And maybe this spiritual torpor that began with this particular Church event closing in 1965 has accelerated even more rapidly in the past 3, 5 and 10 years?
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The John Jay report compiled for the U.S. bishops in 2004 and updated in 2011, noted that from 1950 to 2002,
“…81 percent of the victims [between 1950 and 2002] were male,” and that 78 percent were postpubescent—that is, not children but instead teenagers, young men, or older men. While the report itself denies that the primary cause was homosexuality in the seminaries and priesthood, the evidence within the report itself clearly shows otherwise.
Why is this important? It is important because the U.S. Catholic Church, aided and abetted by society at large and the mainstream media, continues to declare that they are fighting child sex abuse, when recent history and the most comprehensive studies provide mountains of evidence that the primary issue causing fiscal bankruptcy and reorganization is not pedophilia but the widespread practice of sodomy among the Church’s ordained ministers.
So as U.S. dioceses continue to implode with a dearth of vocations to the priesthood and declare fiscal bankruptcy, a result of the spiritual bankruptcy of the leadership in the Church for the past nearly 60 years, why do they continue to ignore the real elephant in the living room?
Destroyed priesthood. Destroyed seminarians. Destroyed bishops. Destroyed cardinals, and yes, destroyed popes. Destroyed liturgy and new sacraments, new modern church buildings, and a new theology. Destroyed families and family life cast away into the dumpster.
Could it be that this new program implemented since 1965 has all aided and abetted both spiritual and temporal bankruptcy? And with nary a protest nor questioning by the Church hierarchy to suggest that perhaps all of this effeminate nonsense has taken Catholics down the wrong road. The evidence is manifest, but perhaps the wisdom to identify it and return to authentic Catholicism is lacking.
Our Lord and Savior had this to say to the religious leaders of His time: “Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they are blind, and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit.” (Matt: 15:13-14 Douay-Rheims version).
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