Judge rules Newfoundland parishioners must hand over their church to be sold
ST. JOHN'S - A judge has ordered parishioners in southeastern Newfoundland to hand over their church so it can be sold to pay survivors of sexual abuse.
The province's Supreme Court says parishioners of the Holy Rosary Church in Portugal Cove South, N.L., must return control of the building to the Roman Catholic archdiocese in St. John's.
Justice Garrett Handrigan says the group of parishioners took the law into their own hands when they changed the locks on the church's doors last year in an effort to prevent its sale.
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Handrigan's written decision says the actions were breaches of the peace, and it grants a permanent injunction against their occupation of the building.
The archdiocese has been selling off its assets in eastern Newfoundland as part of bankruptcy proceedings to compensate survivors of abuse at the former Mount Cashel orphanage in St. John's.
A Supreme Court of Canada decision in 2021 cemented the archdiocese's liability for physical and sexual abuse at the orphanage between the 1940s and the 1960s.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 22, 2025.
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