From the WSJ, on the Spokane diocese bankruptcy ruling

So far, three U.S. dioceses have declared bankruptcy as a result of tort claims, and others could follow. If the Spokane ruling stands and is mimicked elsewhere, diocesan creditors will enjoy greater access to parish assets than the local bishop himself. Hundreds of churches and schools that had nothing whatever to do with any sexual predator, and whose facilities exist through the patient charity of generations, will be at risk–as will the very autonomy of the church. However scandalous some dioceses’ treatment of clerical sexual abusers might have been, it hardly justifies retreat from a fundamental freedom.