The sales prices suggest something modest, even forgettable. But the real estate transactions are weighted with meaning. The Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa recently gained approval to sell two small churches - one near Cloverdale, one in Hopland - as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, a judicial process now 2½ years old. They probably won't be the last properties liquidated by the diocese as it continues mediation talks with insurance companies and with survivors of alleged sexual abuse,
In a motion filed this week, the diocese said its latest proposal to pay $165 million over five years to settle roughly 350 claims of alleged abuse drew hardly a response from the victims' attorneys, and neither did several previous offers. A local division of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court may decide next month whether to allow the church to pull the plug on its Chapter 11 proceedings, which Diocese attorneys said have become expensive because their creditors have effectively bled (the church) dry.