PORTLAND, Ore. — A bankruptcy judge ruled on Dec. 30 that the Archdiocese of Portland, not its parishes, owns church assets, dealing a major blow to its efforts to protect church property from lawsuits filed by alleged victims of priest sex abuse.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris, in a pair of opinions (Tort Claimants Committee v. Archbishop of Portland #2 and Tort Claimants Committee v. Archbishop of Portland #3), ruled that church property and real estate are under the control of the archdiocese, not its individual parishes, as attorneys for the archdiocese had argued.

She rejected the archdiocese’s claim that applying federal law instead of church law could violate its First Amendment right to religious freedom by disrupting the internal governance of the church.

“There is no First Amendment impediment to this court’s jurisdiction,” Perris wrote.

The rulings do not necessarily mean that the archdiocese would be forced to sell off church property to pay settlements or court awards to sex abuse victims. Perris left open the question of whether the sale of individual church properties could pose an unfair burden on the practice of religion under the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act of 1993.

The Portland Archdiocese became the first in the nation to declare bankruptcy when it filed for protection from creditors in July 2004, just before the scheduled start of jury trials for victims seeking more than $155 million in damages.

Since then, the archdiocese has been trying to protect church buildings throughout western Oregon from being included in settlements with alleged victims, arguing that the properties are owned by individual parishes, and not the archdiocese.

Dozens of abuse claims are still pending against the archdiocese, but attorneys for both sides have declined to estimate the damages being sought.

Perris’ ruling mirrors an earlier decision in the bankruptcy of the Diocese of Spokane, Wash., which sought protection from creditors shortly after the Archdiocese of Portland. A judge in that case said Spokane Bishop William Skylstad agreed to abide by federal law when he voluntarily entered the diocese into bankruptcy, and cannot claim that ownership must decided by church law.

In a related ruling issued on Dec. 23, Perris approved questions that plantiffs’ attorneys plan to ask Archbishop William Levada at a deposition about sex abuse claims when he was archbishop in Portland from 1986 to 1995.

Levada became the highest-ranking American in the Vatican in May when Pope Benedict XVI named him to take over the pontiff’s old job as guardian of doctrinal orthodoxy, responsible for protecting church teachings and for reviewing all sex abuse claims against clergy.

Vatican lawyers had tried to limit the scope of the questions planned at the Jan. 6 deposition in San Francisco.

But the judge “has basically allowed us to ask everything we wanted to,” said Erin Olson, who represents some of the victims.