Court revives lawsuits against diocese over closures
An appeals court has given new life to lawsuits by members of two former Catholic parishes in Washington County, saying they can try to prove in court their allegations that the Diocese of Pittsburgh and Bishop David Zubik used fraud to raise funds for churches that would soon close.
But the three-judge panel on the Commonwealth Court gave mixed rulings Thursday in the cases. It sided with the diocese’s claim that the courts cannot second-guess Bishop Zubik’s closure of the churches without intruding on a religious group’s First Amendment right to make such decisions without government interference.
Still, the rulings marked a victory for the plaintiffs in that they partially reversed 2017 rulings by a Washington County Court of Common Pleas judge, who had tossed out the parishioners’ lawsuits in their entirety.
At issue are lawsuits filed by former members of St. Anthony Parish in Monongahela, which merged in 2011 with another parish to form St. Damien of Molokai Parish, and St. Agnes in Richeyville, which merged in 2017 with four other parishes to form St. Katharine Drexel Parish. The St. Anthony church was closed in 2014, while the former St. Agnes site is used for some weekend Masses, according to the St. Katharine website.
The plaintiffs — six from St. Agnes and five from St. Anthony — had sought financial damages from the diocese as well as injunctions to keep the diocese from selling the churches.
Senior Judge Bonnie Brigance Leadbetter, writing for the threejudge panel, said the court couldn’t issue the injunctions but that the plaintiffs should have a right to pursue their fraud claims in court.
The plaintiffs allege that when the diocese and Bishop Zubik were raising funds under a diocesewide “Church Alive” capital campaign, the church leaders gave the impression that parishioners could keep their churches open by demonstrating their financial support through their donations. The
plaintiffs allege the diocese planned to close their churches all along.
“While the bishop and the diocese may have had the right under the law to do as they saw fit with regard to merging the parishes and dealing with church property, they did not have the right to take the parishioners’ money under false pretenses,” Judge Leadbetter wrote in separate, almost identical opinions in the St. Agnes and St. Anthony cases.
The judge wasn’t saying that happened but rather that the plaintiffs have the right to gather their evidence and prove their claims in court.
The diocese is reviewing the rulings “and will determine the appropriate next steps,” Chancellor Ellen Mady said in a statement. The diocese could ask the full Commonwealth Court to re-hear the case, or it could appeal to the state Supreme Court.
Attorney Joseph Dalfonso, representing the plaintiffs, applauded the decision. “It’s very rare that you get a court decision” favoring plaintiffs challenging the disposition of church property, he said. “Fortunately for our clients, we had the right circumstances” to do so.
The Washington County mergers were a sign of things to come: The diocese has since embarked on a widespread consolidation, merging parishes throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania with the likelihood that many of their church sanctuaries would close.
The aim is to enable the church to live within its means, to hold fewer but better-attended Masses with more vibrant liturgies, to evangelize those not involved in Catholic life and to maintain reasonable workloads for the declining ranks of priests.
Laura Magone, one of the plaintiffs who had attended St. Anthony’s, said she hoped the Commonwealth Court ruling would encourage members of other parishes to challenge the closures of their churches.
“We don’t view this as fighting against the church,” she said. “We are parishioners who are trying to help the bishop and the church get back to what the church is supposed to be. If his intent is to revive the church, you don’t do it by closing churches.”
Some members of St. Anthony held an overnight sitin at the church in 2014 after its final Mass, and they later unsuccessfully appealed its closure to the Vatican’s top court.