Property Taxes and Pedophilia

Dan Savage, edgy advice columnist, is currently guest-blogging for Andrew Sullivan. He's promised to keep it relatively clean and thus far has. This post on the Catholic Church's efforts to raise money for cash settlements to victims of sexual abuse by priests has an interesting land use angle:

Like other Catholic dioceses (dioci?), the Catholic Diocese in Oakland plans to sell church-owned land to cover the debt. Settlements in the Church sex-abuse scandal are going to reach into the hundreds of millions, if not the billions, of dollars. . . . I can't help but wonder what kind of an impact all of this property returning to private, secular ownership is going to have on property tax receipts in places like, say, Boston and Oakland and Chicago ...