Almost everything has to be sold. Hundreds of properties in 34 parishes will be liquidated, including the towering basilica of St. John the Baptist, the country’s second-largest Catholic church.
The Archdiocese of St. John’s faces a staggering bill, which could exceed $ 50 million, to compensate survivors of sexual abuse at the ancient Mount Cashel orphanage, one of the first pedophilia scandals to shake the Roman Catholic Church in Canada.
The archdiocese has no money. The Vatican is not intervening to help. This means that thousands of parishioners could soon lose the churches they believed they owned.
“I don’t understand,” Jerome Fennelly said after what could have been the last Easter Mass at Portugal Cove’s Holy Rosary Church, where he has been worshiped for 62 years.
“This house, this church, the church hall, was built by the parishioners of this parish, and the archdiocese of St. John can only come in here and take it and sell it? I don’t understand. “
Parishioners like Fennelly have until June 2 to submit an offer to buy their church. Other parishes will soon face the same harsh election.
On the one hand, the archdiocese has already confiscated virtually all the parish savings, so if the faithful want to buy their church, they have to start from scratch. On the other hand, if they throw in the towel, they run the risk of not having a place of worship. All other churches in the area are also on the market.
It is an unsustainable situation for many Catholics, but the legal explanation is simple. In 2019, the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeals ruled that the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of St. John’s, the archdiocese’s secular arm, is indirectly responsible for sexual abuse at Mount Cashel in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.