{"id":7956,"date":"2015-08-21T18:05:31","date_gmt":"2015-08-22T00:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=7956"},"modified":"2015-08-22T12:51:17","modified_gmt":"2015-08-22T18:51:17","slug":"bishops-letter-to-parishioners-hammers-gazette-editorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2015\/08\/bishops-letter-to-parishioners-hammers-gazette-editorial\/","title":{"rendered":"Bishop’s letter to parishioners hammers Gazette editorial"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Warfel\"<\/a>

The Rev. Michael Warfel, bishop of the Great Falls-Billings Diocese of the Catholic Church.<\/p><\/div>\n

Catholic parishioners all over Eastern Montana are expected to find a letter from Bishop Michael Warfel in their Mass bulletins this Sunday, harshly criticizing a recent editorial<\/a> in the Billings Gazette.<\/p>\n

The letter, dated Aug. 17 and signed by Warfel, bishop of the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, takes the Gazette to task for what Warfel calls \u201can incredibly erroneous opinion piece\u201d that ran last Sunday.<\/p>\n

The unsigned editorial said the diocese paid the Northern Cheyenne Tribe $11 million to settle claims against the church, but Warfel said the settlement was negotiated between the St. Labre Indian School in Ashland and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is true that St. Labre is a Catholic School,\u201d Warfel\u2019s letter says. \u201cIt is not, however, a part of the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings. \u2026 The diocese has NOT paid the tribe a single dollar in this settlement.\u201d<\/p>\n

No one could be reached at the diocese office, which closes at noon on Fridays. Pat Bellinghausen, editorial page editor of the Gazette, referred all questions to Gazette Editor Darrel Ehrlick, who wrote the editorial, according to Bellinghausen. Ehrlick did not return a phone call from Last Best News.<\/p>\n

The Gazette has already acknowledged that the editorial contained some errors. It printed a boxed clarification<\/a> on top of its opinion page Friday, saying that diocesan officials \u201chave since said the diocese did not pay out any cash settlement.\u201d<\/p>\n

It goes on to say, though, that the diocese \u201cwas named as one of the defendants in the lawsuit which reached settlement last year. Documents show the diocese may have had to relinquish property in the lawsuit, but officials and lawyers would not comment on the specifics of settlement because of a mutual gag order that was negotiated as part of the settlement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>In the original editorial, the Gazette said \u201cthe church demanded that the tribe not disclose terms of the settlement\u201d and \u201cchose to litigate the lawsuit behind closed doors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warfel said in his letter that the lawsuit \u201cwas carried on in the same fashion as any other civil lawsuit,\u201d and that all of the diocese\u2019s filings \u201cwere available to any curious member of the public, including the staff of the Billings Gazette.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warfel also took issue with the notion that the church \u201cwas somehow in total control of the lawsuit and of the negotiations.\u201d He said both parties to the lawsuit had an equal say in negotiations and in agreements on whether or not terms of the settlement would be disclosed. \u201cIn that respect,\u201d Warfel said, \u201cmy attorneys tell me that such provisions are virtually standard in civil litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cself-righteous tone of the editorial is bad enough,\u201d Warfel wrote, but the misrepresentations and errors demonstrated \u201cshoddy research as well as anti-Catholic bias which is becoming all too common in the media.\u201d<\/p>\n

When St. Labre and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe reached a settlement earlier this year, the Gazette reported<\/a> that the legal battle centered on \u201callegations that the Catholic mission school reaped millions in fundraising dollars by exploiting the tribe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was filed in 2005 and accused the church and the diocese of \u201cunjust enrichment\u201d for failing to share fundraising proceeds with the tribe, even though the money had been raised by marketing the poverty of the tribe. The suit also alleged, again according to the original Gazette article, that \u201cthe school and church committed fraud, breach of contract and cultural genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warfel defends St. Labre in his letter to parishioners, saying it does \u201cremarkable service\u201d to both the Northern Cheyenne and Crow tribes, \u201cespecially for Indian schoolchildren.\u201d<\/p>\n

To read Warfel\u2019s letter, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Catholic parishioners all over Eastern Montana are expected to find a letter from Bishop Michael Warfel in their Mass bulletins this Sunday, harshly criticizing a recent editorial in the Billings Gazette. The letter, dated Aug. 17 and signed by Warfel, bishop of the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings, takes the Gazette to task for what Warfel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[826,306,2969,2968,2971,2970],"class_list":["post-7956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","tag-catholic-church","tag-darrell-ehrlick","tag-great-falls-billings-diocese","tag-micheal-warfel","tag-northern-cheyenne-tribe","tag-stl-labre-indian-school","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}