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Catholic Dioceses In Bankruptcy, Marie T. Reilly
Catholic Dioceses In Bankruptcy, Marie T. Reilly
Catholic Dioceses in Bankruptcy
The Catholic Church is coping with mass tort liability for sexual abuse of children by priests. Since 2004, eighteen Catholic organizations have filed for relief in bankruptcy. Fifteen debtors emerged from bankruptcy after settling with sexual abuse claimants and insurers. During settlement negotiations, sexual abuse claimants and debtors clashed over the extent of the debtors’ property and ability to pay claims. Although such disputes are common in chapter 11 plan negotiations, the Catholic cases required the parties and bankruptcy courts to account for unique religious attributes of Catholic debtors. This article reviews the arguments and outcomes on property issues based …
The Right To Enforce: Why Rluipa's Land Use Provisions Is A Constitutional Federal Enforcement Power, Qasim Rashid
The Right To Enforce: Why Rluipa's Land Use Provisions Is A Constitutional Federal Enforcement Power, Qasim Rashid
Law Student Publications
The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”) superseded the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”), which the Supreme Court held unconstitutional in its application to states in 1997. A two-pronged law, RLUIPA protects prisoners from unjust impositions to their freedom of worship and also ensures religious institutions may use their property for legitimate worship purposes without burdensome zoning law restrictions. This paper focuses specifically on the latter prong and analyzes RLUIPA in light of the growing Islamophobia in America during the previous twenty-four months. For example, the United States Department of Justice reports “of the eighteen RLUIPA matters involving …
A Property Rights Approach To Sacred Sites Cases: Asserting A Place For Indians As Nonowners, Kristen A. Carpenter
A Property Rights Approach To Sacred Sites Cases: Asserting A Place For Indians As Nonowners, Kristen A. Carpenter
Publications
Although the Free Exercise Clause prohibits governmental interference with religion, American Indians have been unsuccessful in challenging government actions that harm tribal sacred sites located on federal public lands. The First Amendment dimensions of these cases have been well studied by scholars, but this Article contends that it is also important to analyze them through a property law lens. Indeed, the Supreme Court has treated the federal government's ownership of public lands as a basis for denying Indian religious freedoms claims. This Article contends that such holdings rely on an "ownership model" of property law wherein the rights of the …
In The Absence Of Title: Responding To Federal Ownership In Sacred Sites Cases, Kristen A. Carpenter
In The Absence Of Title: Responding To Federal Ownership In Sacred Sites Cases, Kristen A. Carpenter
Publications
This paper examines the challenge of protecting American Indian sacred sites located on federal public lands. Many have addressed this issue in the religious freedoms context, but I believe the problem is just as much about property law. The Supreme Court's decision in Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, for example, would appear to suggest that federal ownership of certain sacred sites trumps tribal free exercise clause claims regarding those sites. This holding corresponds with a classic model in which "[p]roperty is about rights over things and the people who have those rights are called owners." However, a …