A Roman Catholic diocese of Long Island will pay more than $323 million to more than 500 victims of sexual abuse at the hands of clergy as part of a new bankruptcy settlement. The 530 victims say they were molested as children by diocese priests.
The Rockville Centre diocese sits in a population of 1.2 million Catholics in Suffolk and Nassau counties. Earlier this year the diocese said it did not think it could reach a bankruptcy settlement when the group of survivors rejected its previous $200 million offer.
But now the diocese is set to put $235 million into a settlement fund, with the remaining $85 million to come from insurance companies. The bankruptcy judge overseeing the case, Martin Glenn in Manhattan, said the settlement was “enormous progress” because the bankruptcy very nearly fell through.
Speaking for the diocese, Eric Fasano said the money would represent an “equitable settlement” for the abuse survivors that would also allow the church to continue operating.
Adam Slater, a lawyer who worked on the deal, said to the British newspaper The Guardian that this is the biggest diocese settlement in New York state history, and also the largest Catholic bankruptcy ever. The diocese first filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy back in the fall of 2020; it said legal defense costs in numerous suits filed by abuse victims had drained its coffers.
These bankruptcies are going on all over the country; more than two dozen dioceses have declared bankruptcy in the past few years. Pushing this trend are states like New York which have altered their laws to suspend statutes of limitations to allow claimants against the Catholic church to sue.
In one example the New Orleans archdiocese put out a recent settlement offer of $62.5 million to compensate about 500 claimants. Under this plan, the church’s insurers would pay nothing. But the survivors rejected the deal and counter-proposed a settlement of $217 million, with the New Orleans diocese’s insurers on the hook for $800 million.
