The Archdiocese of Milwaukee's creditors want the federal judge in the church's bankruptcy case to set aside a key ruling and recuse himself over a potential conflict of interest — the fact that he has several relatives buried in Catholic cemeteries, the Milwaukee (Wis.) Journal Sentinel reported today. U.S. District Judge Rudolph T. Randa ruled in late July that forcing the archdiocese to tap the $50 million-plus it holds in a trust for the perpetual care of cemeteries would substantially burden its free expression of religion under the First Amendment and a 1993 federal law aimed at protecting religious liberty. In response, lawyers representing the archdiocese's creditors — primarily sex abuse victims — asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley to compel the release of any records showing whether Randa and his wife, Melinda, have purchased any plots or crypts in one of the archdiocese's cemeteries, or whether they have any interest as heirs or beneficiaries of several relatives known to be buried in them. Before Randa reversed her, Kelley had found that the First Amendment did not protect the cemeteries trust fund. In motions filed on Monday — one to set aside the ruling and the other asking Randa to recuse himself — the creditors said they "discovered that at least nine of Judge Randa's relatives (including his mother, his father and his wife's parents) are buried in cemeteries owned and operated by" the archdiocese.
