Dallas diocese is broke, needs more money from parishes

 

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.

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.

Every parish sends a portion of its collections, called the assessment, to the diocesan offices every quarter. Those assessments range from 5 percent to 12.6 percent, depending on the wealth of the parish.

Starting in September, a special, temporary increase of 0.5 percent to 1.3 percent will be tacked on.

The last time the diocese added a special assessment was to help cover the settlement costs of the infamous Rudy Kos molestation case. After being declared "grossly negligent" by a Dallas jury in 1997, the diocese paid more than $31 million to 10 men who were abused by Mr. Kos as boys. He has been defrocked and sent to prison.