A U.S. Bankruptcy Court will allow clergy abuse claimants to sue for an estimated half-billion dollars in parish assets to fund settlements under the Vermont Roman Catholic Diocese’s current financial reorganization case. The order doesn’t promise any parish assets, but simply permits abuse claimants to file a lawsuit — what the bankruptcy court labels an “adversary proceeding” — to determine whether they’re entitled to local holdings. The diocese’s leaders and lawyers declined VTDigger’s request for comment, although they filed an 18-page objection to the pursuit of parish assets as recently as July 21. Attorneys for a federally appointed committee representing more than 100 clergy abuse claimants submitted its lawsuit Friday asking the judge to declare that all church assets are available to pay creditors. “Absent a declaration,” the abuse claimants’ attorneys wrote in a filing, “the diocese will continue to evade its moral, financial and legal responsibility to the survivors.”