Roman Catholic Church is Abusing Bankruptcy Laws:
Lawyers Suing Vatican Call For A Public Audit
The Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon recently announced plans to file for bankruptcy due to millions of dollars in potential debt to sexual abuse survivors. Now the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky and others are lining up to do the same. However, the Vatican and its myriad branches: Dioceses, Orders (Franciscans, Jesuits, etc.), and tens of thousands of tax-free organizations all answerable to Rome control multi-billions of dollars in property, artworks, and hard assets like gold, cash and securities.
Last year former Governor Frank Keating likened those who sexually abuse and cover up in the name of the Church as Mafia. He was right on the money; the real Mafia has infiltrated the Catholic Church. Just one example is the Vatican Bank, nominally owned by the Pope. The Vatican Bank operating with diplomatic immunity has been mired in one criminal scandal after another since it’s current incarnation in 1942. Now it faces not only our lawsuit (Alperin vs. Vatican Bank) seeking stolen Second World War assets but also a nearly $1 billion dollar lawsuit by five state insurance commissioners for money laundering in connection with convicted swindler Martin Frankel. The number three man at the Vatican, Cardinal Sodano is implicated that conspiracy.
In the United States, the Archdiocese and Orders have covered up crimes and enabled a legion of pedophiles. The so-called lavender mafia now seeks to hide behind the United States bankruptcy courts. But should an enterprise infiltrated by criminals be allowed to shield themselves in this manner? The answer is a palpable NO; instead the entire Vatican apparatus should be stripped of its non-profit status here unless it submits to a public audit. We guarantee parishioners will be shocked when they see where the money went and that the Church’s abuses of trust will end in short order once their full extent is revealed.
The lawsuit, Alperin v. Vatican Bank, was filed in November 1999 by Serb, Jewish, and Ukrainian Holocaust survivors against the Vatican Bank seeking return of Nazi loot from wartime Yugoslavia has run into an apparent wall of silence. Tom Easton and Jonathan Levy represent 28 plaintiffs suing the Vatican Bank, the case is currently pending in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
