I’m not sure why, with a $2 billion deficit facing the state this year and a $7 billion projected for next, our legislature thinks it has the time to spare to attempt to strip the Catholic Church of the power to regulate its own affairs, but that’s what this bill will do, according to the Bovina Bloviator. Reading the proposed statute, I’d say that that’s exactly what the Judiciary Committee intends.
In Connecticut, a state where rabid anti-Catholicism is a hoary old tradition, once the provenance of the right, later effortlessly assumed by the left, the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut State Legislature has introduced a bill into the General Assembly that would, according to Fr. Greg Markey, the estimable pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Norwalk, remove from bishops and pastors, “any administrative, financial and legal power over their parishes.”
For What It's Worth 
Any chance a similar bill will be written to apply the same provisions to imams and mullahs of Connecticut mosques?
Change is needed as there is widespread corruption and no accountability by the pastors. If my pastor fundraises for a new roof or boiler, I’d like to know how much money parishioners donated and make sure that the new boiler gets installed.
While I don’t know the specifics of the bill & hate government micromanaging of private organizations, something needs to change. The bill calls for 7 to 13 lay member church councils that handle financial matters only and report to their pastor & bishop. Similar to many Protestant parishes and Jewish temples. The driving force behind this concept is parishioners who want accountability for their parish donations — they have been flat out ignored & rebuffed on this issue by the church, and the Bridgeport Diocese in particular.
Signed,
A Catholic whose parish priest stole 1.4 million in church funds while having a homosexual affair with a convicted pedophile & who shamelessly helped cover up that pedophile’s subsequent murder of a local man.
I’m not a Catholic but I find it deeply troubling to think that a state legislature wants to intervene in any church’s governance. I can’t believe that this bill would ever pass constitutional muster – that pesky First Amendment thing – but I don’t think it’s a good thing for the state to even try.
As for the horible state of the Catholic church with its never-ending scandals of pedeophiles, drunks and thieves, you have my sympathy, but if the church won’t attend to these things then perhaps the church will die. It’s happened before.
In response to New Buyer, if you as a parishoner want to hold your parish accountable for misuse of funds you can always appeal to a Church Tribunal. The point is not that the Church would “take care of its own” but you would find a more receptive ear there and simultaneously an enforceable remedy.
The problem with the proposed Connecticut law is simple:
1. the law itself would alter the organization of the Roman Catholic Church in Connecticut and so it does run contrary to the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment (briefly, a Court or Government — Federal or, by the Fourteenth Amendment, State) cannot make a law or impose a judgement that would contravene the established organization of a religious group; and,
2. a remedy at law would be unenforceable since a Civil Court could not impose its judgement where there is already an established tribunal for that purpose (see Watson v. Jones (1871)).
I would be very upset if my parish (I am also Catholic) Pastor misused funds but the point of the Church organization is to coordinate belief (one Truth as understood through both Faith and Reason, developed over 2000 years) and maintain an single place for guiding and living that faith.
I have friends who are Baptist and Methodist; I have joined others at Lutheran worship and during college I sincerely considerd the tenets of Buddhism and Taoism. One thing is clear: for every country I have gone to and every person from a foreign country I have known, the Church is Universal: it is largely the same everywhere. I could go to a church in Kyoto and find the same essential faith. I should also note that at Mass anywhere you will find true Diversity: people from every race join in. That is the benefit of the organization and supplanting a State Government for that organization would politicize and destroy that benefit.
Countries that seek to repress the Church, such as Eritreia and India first attack Church property; in Ireland the British repressed Catholicism by closing the Churches and when people were starving would only provide soup to those who renounced their Catholic Faith (the Catholics were left to starve, and they did in the hundreds of thousands).
Old Coot, we could never do that because it would be, you know, hostile towards the religion of peace.
pdt, I believe in Ireland to this day it is said with deep disparagement of someone who belongs to the Church of Ireland (Anglican), “he took soup,” i.e. he or his ancestors became protestants for a mess of pottage (as it were).
This looks like it might be payback for the Catholic Church having spoken out against same sex marriage:
http://www.southernappeal.org/index.php/archives/6954