Vermont Catholics Sell Lake Property To Pay Sex Claims

Vermont’s Roman Catholic Church has sold a prime piece of nearly undeveloped land along Lake Champlain’s Malletts Bay to help pay $17.6 million to help settle a series of priest sex abuse cases.

An area businessman bought the 26-acre property with nearly 1,000 feet of shoreline property that for 60 years had been used by the church’s Camp Holy Cross for $4 million and he intends to build upscale houses on the site.

The Diocese of Burlington had offered to sell the 26-acre parcel to the town of Colchester so it could be converted to a park, but townspeople rejected the plan by a 2-to-1 margin.

Colchester businessman Bruce Barry tells the Burlington Free Press his first step will be to demolish the 22 Camp Holy Cross buildings.