The Catholic Diocese of Dallas is asking its parishes to take a little extra out of their collection plates to help pay diocesan legal costs.I have often said that if our bishop can't be a good shepherd the least we could expect is a good businessman. Evidently not.
In a letter sent to pastors this week, Bishop Charles Grahmann said two legal fights were likely to cost the cash-strapped diocese more than the $1 million budgeted for litigation in 2006.
Those two cases are the battle against the Dallas school system's attempt to condemn land next to a Catholic cemetery and the lawsuit over two child molesters who worked at St. Pius X Catholic Church's child-care center in Far East Dallas in the 1990s.
"Those costs have exhausted our reserves," the bishop wrote of those two lawsuits.Dallas Morning News
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Seeing this in the newspaper this morning evoked the usual eyerolls from Tom and me. We haven't forgotten, as apparently Bishop Grahmann has, the first time our reserves "were exhausted" by paying for the Rudy Kos lawsuit settlement due to the bishop's intransigence (he only officially apoligized to the victims and their families last year). The St. Pius X is too much more of the same for us.
Our parish has had its own problems with the bishop, as have many others. Like most Dallas Catholics we are waiting until next year when Bishop Grahmann turns 75 and has to send his letter of resignation to the Vatican ... and crossing our fingers that they accept it. Until then I guess we'll just have to keep on paying and waiting for our bishop to remember to "feed my sheep."
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