Jackson, Miss., Oct 22, 2019 / 17:01 pm
The Diocese of Jackson and its ordinary, Bishop Joseph Kopacz, are being sued by the diocese's former director of finance, who says he was unjustly fired last year.
Arie "Aad" Mattheus de Lange was fired from the diocese Oct. 3, 2018, which was later changed to an administrative leave. In May, he was told that he was no longer employed by the Diocese of Jackson. He filed the lawsuit earlier this month, saying his firing was in retaliation for his complaints about how the budget is handled.
"The reasons proffered for de Lange's termination were false, pretextual, and did not rise to the level of grave reason," claims the lawsuit. The suit further states that it is "inexplicable" that de Lange was fired for a grave reason due to the lack of any sort of performance review during his employment.
"De Lange's discharge was retaliatory in nature based upon his reasonable objection to the unrealistic budget proposed for Catholic Charities and the potential adverse impact it posed to the diocese," said the suit. According to the filing, the Diocese of Jackson serves as the guarantor of Catholic Charities, and Catholic Charities does not need permission to remove money from the diocese's checking account.