A few weeks ago, we blogged on a letter from Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Clergy to Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., president of the USCCB clarifying the correct way to deal with the assets of a "closed" parish.

CNS catches up with a story on the letter:

In his letter, sent in March and distributed to U.S. bishops in mid-July, Cardinal Castrillon said that most parish closings fall under the provisions of Canon 121 or Canon 122 of the church’s Code of Canon Law, not Canon 123.

His congregation was concerned that "erroneous use of Canon 123 in the dioceses of the United States is not uncommon," he said.

snip

Father Beal said that when Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington merged or consolidated parishes during his time as bishop of Pittsburgh, he always followed those two laws, treating reconfigured parishes as new public juridic persons and allocating all the assets and liabilities of the former parishes to the new parish or parishes.

Father Lawrence A. DiNardo, Pittsburgh diocesan vicar for canonical services, said that was true and the diocese never took over the assets of a closed parish.

Father Beal said that elsewhere in the country, however, it has not been uncommon for bishops to treat such a change as the extinction of a parish under Canon 123, with part or all of the suppressed parish’s assets reverting to the diocese.

He said Cardinal Castrillon’s letter gives notice to the bishops that the Congregation for Clergy, which has Vatican oversight over the disposition of parish property, has decided that "as a matter of equity, that’s unfair."

He said that Canon 19, which governs in cases where there are gaps in church law, is the basis for Cardinal Castrillon’s decision even though it is not explicitly cited in the letter. Canon 19 says that questions not expressly governed by church law must be resolved "in light of laws issued in similar matters, general principles of law applied with canonical equity, the jurisprudence and practice of the Roman Curia and the common and constant opinion of learned persons."

Father Beal said he did not think the cardinal’s letter would affect the bankruptcy cases in the Spokane Diocese or the Archdiocese of Portland, Ore., because court disputes over diocesan or parish ownership of parish properties in those cases are being decided on the basis of how those dioceses and parishes are set up under civil law, not their status in church law.