Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Local Catholic parishes in Western New York are starting to learn the amount of money they are being asked to contribute to help the Buffalo Diocese pay the $150 million sex abuse settlement.
The amounts range from 10%-to-80% of unrestricted cash.
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But Canon Law expert Philip Gray of St. Joseph's Foundation tells WBEN, not so fast. He says there are three ways to fight this.
"First, as a whole, the people can complain to Rome. Individual parishes can also file an appeal. And, most importantly, pastors are the head of a parish, not the Bishop, and hold the purse strings. They can refuse to pay," said Gray.
The way the Buffalo Diocese is going about the payment, of between
10% and 80% is not in conformity with Canon Law, according to Gray.
He explained that parishes are very important to the church. That's where people meet Christ, and it's where everything happens in the church.
Because of that, he said parishes get a lot of protections and pastors are given a lot of discretion.
"Pastors have a lot of power, if they understand it, and if they yield it properly," Gray said.
Gray has seen the bankruptcy process play out in other Diocese in other cities. Are church leaders in Buffalo handling it like the others?
"We have seen it in a couple of other places. But I have not seen the kind of assessments that they're laying on the people in Buffalo," he said. "This is extraordinary and it is not a moderate tax. It's an extraordinary tax and it's way too high and the way that they've assessed it in my opinion is not proper."
Mary Pruski with Save Our Buffalo Churches, a group formed to fight church closures, says the local Catholic community is back in crisis mode.
"We're starting to feel like victims again, and it's something we have to resist," she told WBEN.
"We need everybody to take a step back for about two weeks. We need to do more investigating. This is punitive. It's not building the faith. We are pursuing different avenues to fight this."