San Francisco archdiocese files for bankruptcy amid child abuse lawsuits

St. Mary’s Cathedral, the principle church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, in 2010. The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy Monday.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco on Monday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, saying it is necessary to resolve the more than 500 lawsuits of child sexual abuse dating back decades, prompting victim advocates to call the decision an attempt to deny justice and transparency for survivors.

The petition was filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone said Monday, arguing that it was the “best solution for providing fair and equitable compensation to the innocent survivors who have been harmed,” he said on the archdiocese website.

“The unfortunate reality is that the archdiocese has neither the financial means nor the practical ability to litigate all of these abuse claims individually,” he said.

“It is the best way to bring much-needed resolution to survivors while allowing the Archdiocese to continue its sacred mission to the faithful and those in need. We must seek purification and redemption to heal, especially survivors who have carried the burdens of these sins against them for decades,” the statement added.

Cordileone said the majority of the alleged abuses occurred from the 1960s into the ’80s and involved priests who are deceased or no longer in the ministry.

The announcement prompted criticism from advocates who argued it could “stonewall survivors of clergy sexual abuse from receiving proper justice under the lawsuits filed under the California Child Victims Act,” said Jeff Anderson, an attorney who represents more than 125 people suing the archdiocese.

In a statement posted on his firm’s website, Anderson called the archbishop’s decision “dangerous” and said it demonstrates his preference for “secrecy and self-protection.”

The archdiocese did not immediately respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment on Anderson’s accusation Monday afternoon. When asked about the bankruptcy filing, it deferred to the statement on its website.

Dan McNevin, a representative of the nonprofit Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, had also previously warned against harmful consequences of such move.

“San Francisco’s bankruptcy will stiff-arm survivors who have the courage to tell their stories,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle this month, when the newspaper reported on the archdiocese’s intent to seek the protections. “If it is allowed to stand, bankruptcy halts trials, testimony, legal discovery, and the release of the files of priests and other perpetrators that, if released could be used to assess who in the organization helped to cover up crimes.”

“It’s a double bottom line benefit; they keep their secrets and they keep more of their wealth,” McNevin told the Chronicle.

Anderson and other advocates have also questioned the archdiocese’s refusal to publish information about members of clergy accused of child sexual abuse.

A barrage of lawsuits came after California passed a 2019 law allowing people to bring claims for childhood sexual abuse that otherwise would have been barred due the statute of limitations. The law opened a three-year window allowing cases to be filed against nonprofit organizations through Dec. 31, 2022, leading to more than 500 civil lawsuits against the San Francisco Archdiocese, according to a Los Angeles Times article from late last year, and more than 3,000 lawsuits against the Catholic Church in the state, The Post reported last month.

In 2003, California became the first U.S. state to temporarily lift statutes of limitations for childhood sex abuse in the wake of the Catholic Church scandal.

>If approved, the Chapter 11 process would freeze legal actions against the archdiocese while it restructures its finances.

The archbishop said bankruptcy would cover only the corporate legal entity, the Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco, and not its 88 parishes and schools, which are independently managed and will continue to operate as usual. The archdiocese serves more than 442,000 parishioners in the counties of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin.

The San Francisco Archdiocese’s move follows that of the Santa Rosa Diocese, which filed for bankruptcy in March amid sex-abuse lawsuits from 200 people. The Oakland Diocese announced in May that it had filed for bankruptcy amid more than 330 lawsuits.

According to the Catholic News Agency, more than two dozen dioceses in the United States have entered bankruptcy proceedings, most of them in the past decade.

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August 10, 2023August 9, 2023

300 New Orleans priests were reported for sexual abuse

— Only 25% are on archdiocese’s credibly accused list

The number of abuse claims – 310, spanning several decades – have been kept from public as archdiocese undergoes bankruptcy proceedings

By Ramon Antonio Vargas

More than 300 people employed by Roman Catholic institutions in the south-eastern US city of New Orleans have been accused of sexually abusing children or other vulnerable people whom they met through their work over the last several decades, secret documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.

Though New Orleans’s 230-year-old archdiocese has spent a significant portion of its recent history managing the fallout from its association with the worldwide Catholic church’s clerical molestation scandal, the organization has generally sought to keep hidden the exact number of priests, deacons, nuns, religious brothers and lay staffers – such as parochial school teachers – under its supervision who have been named in abuse claims.

A memorandum which attorneys for victims of clerical sexual abuse prepared and handed to law enforcement in the latter part of last year arguably gives the clearest idea yet of the number of accused abusers working over the last five decades or so in a region that is home to about a half-million Catholics. The brief summarizes evidence of what its authors believe are crimes that could still be prosecuted.

And while the 48-page document has not led to any substantial action from authorities, it shows how the archdiocese itself only finds roughly a quarter of the allegations against its clergymen to be credibly accused, which is well below what research estimates is the norm for sexual abuse claims to be found false or unprovable.

The memo additionally asserts that the archdiocese has referred fewer than two dozen of its accused clerics to law enforcement, on average waiting nearly two decades to do so.

The memo alludes to secret internal archdiocesan records that were handed over after the local church sought federal bankruptcy protection in 2020 in response to a wave of abuse-related lawsuits. Because confidentiality rules govern the bankruptcy, both church officials and advocates for molestation victims have worked to keep the memo hidden from public view.

The Guardian, however, obtained a copy of that memo.

For nearly five years now, the New Orleans archdiocese has curated a list of 77 priests and deacons whom the organization considers to be credibly accused. Officials maintain that the roster, first released by Archbishop Gregory Aymond in 2018, resulted from an extensive, ongoing internal review of files concerning the careers of more than 2,300 clerics, which was meant to fulfill promises of transparency spurred on by the abuse crisis.

But there are at least 56 other priests and deacons who worked at institutions overseen by – or at least within the boundaries of – the archdiocese of New Orleans who are not on its credibly accused roster. Those individuals have, however, landed on similar lists published by other dioceses or religious institutions across the country, according to the authors of the documents seen by the Guardian.

The memo’s authors found another four priests whom an archdiocesan advisory board found to be credibly accused yet were still omitted from any list.

And an additional 169 priests and deacons as well as four non-clerical workers acknowledged by the New Orleans archdiocese were named in abuse claims filed as part of the organization’s bankruptcy case. (Another 34 non-clerical workers were accused in the bankruptcy, but the archdiocese has apparently argued that they were not technically employed by the organization, and the disagreement hasn’t been litigated.)

The difference is stark between the sheer number of abuse complaints and those whom the organization has named on its credibly accused list, which has always made it a point to exclude non-ordained employees.

From the 310 Catholic priests, deacons and acknowledged non-clerical workers – living and dead – in the New Orleans area who appear on a suspected molester list or who are fully named in an abuse claim in bankruptcy court, the archdiocese has judged just 24.8% of them to be substantially accused.

Despite that figure, research cited by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center finds that just between 2% and 10% of sexual assault reports are “false”. The center has found that even those low rates are almost certainly inflated because some reporting agencies draw no distinction between a false report and one that lacks what they consider to be enough evidence to substantiate.

Experts say there is an immense difference between a report that is false and one that is not able to be proven as true.

Additionally, the memo reveals other numbers that were of concern to the document’s authors. They found evidence that the archdiocese had referred only 23 allegedly abusive clerics – as opposed to non-ordained employees – to law enforcement as of the beginning of 2022.

Such referrals have helped lead to convictions recently.

On 12 July, Patrick Wattigny – the former chaplain of a Catholic high school in the nearby Louisiana city of Slidell – pleaded guilty to molesting two minors whom he met through his work and received a five-year prison sentence.

Late last year, VM Wheeler III pleaded guilty to charges that he sexually abused a preteen boy two decades earlier, before his ordination as a deacon. Wheeler, who had agreed to serve five years of probation in exchange for his plea, died in April.

Also last year, former Catholic school teacher Brian Matherne – who pleaded guilty in 2000 to molesting 17 boys – was mistakenly released from prison early before questions from his victims and local media outlets prompted authorities to re-incarcerate him.

Nonetheless, most of those 23 clerics who were referred to law enforcement investigators have not been prosecuted, convicted or even listed as credibly accused.

Wheeler is not among those whom the archdiocese lists in the credibly accused list which it curates. Neither is Matherne, who is not an ordained clergyman.

The memo’s authors also make it a point to say that – by their calculations – the archdiocese waited an average of 17 years from first learning of clerical abuse complaints to the point where it referred any information about them to law enforcement.

The memo names at least four clergymen whom a predecessor of Aymond saw fit to report to two separate regional district attorney’s offices in 2002 for possible prosecution but who were omitted from the credibly accused list 16 years later. They have also been omitted from subsequent expansions of that list.

The New Orleans archdiocese’s bankruptcy remains pending.

The organization did not respond to questions from the Guardian, citing the bankruptcy’s confidentiality rules. But Aymond issued a statement that – in part – promised that the archdiocese “would continue to look for ways to strengthen programs” which the church has said are meant to protect both children and “vulnerable” adults.

He also said the archdiocese was meeting with clerical abuse survivors “to review and enhance … protocols for responding to allegations”.

After his administration struck 132 settlement agreements with clerical abuse claimants during a 10-year period beginning in 2010, Aymond wrote a letter to global Catholic leaders in the Vatican estimating that it would cost the archdiocese less than $7.5m to resolve the rest of its mounting liabilities through bankruptcy court.

But, as the local news outlet WWLTV recently reported, the archdiocese which Aymond has headed since 2009 has paid about $25m in bills to attorneys and consultants so far in the case. None of that money has gone to those who have filed unresolved abuse claims in the bankruptcy.

Adding to the frustration from many abuse survivors and their advocates is the fact that a top Aymond adviser earlier in the case testified in open court that the archdiocese did not need bankruptcy protection to remain financially solvent.

“If the archdiocese was not in bankruptcy, would it be solvent?” an attorney asked the organization’s chief financial officer, a priest named Patrick Carr, during that hearing.

“Yes,” Carr replied, according to a transcript of the hearing.

Yet Carr maintained that bankruptcy was the method that best positioned the archdiocese to fully pay off abuse victims and others owed by the organization. And Aymond echoed that in his recent statement to the Guardian.

“My focus is bringing the bankruptcy proceedings to their conclusion so that the survivors can be fairly compensated,” Aymond’s statement said. “I know that there is no amount of money that can bring healing to those who have been hurt. I only hope that my prayers and the pastoral support the survivors are able to receive will help them and bring them peace.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

August 9, 2023August 8, 2023

New Orleans archbishop ignored board findings on clerics accused of abuse

— Gregory Aymond promised ‘to be transparent’ – but a Guardian investigation found that he hid allegations, and an expert questions whether it was against Vatican policy

Archbishop Gregory Aymond leads the Blessing of the Graves on All Saints Day in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2012.

By Ramon Antonio Vargas

A board which helps the Roman Catholic archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, evaluate abuse allegations against priests and deacons in six cases found clergymen to be credibly accused only for Aymond to ignore the findings and conceal them from the public, a Guardian investigation has found.

Aymond’s management of the cases in question as the leader of the US’s second-oldest archdiocese is outlined in a memorandum which attorneys for victims of clerical sexual abuse prepared and handed to law enforcement in the latter part of last year.

It exposes the latest damaging revelations in a decades-long scandal at the 230-year-old archdiocese, which has been shown to have gone to extreme lengths to cover up for a confessed child abuser. The scandal mirrors similar events involving the Catholic church elsewhere in the US and across the world.

The 48-page memo alludes to secret internal archdiocesan records that were handed over after the local church sought federal bankruptcy protection in 2020 in response to a wave of abuse-related lawsuits. Because confidentiality rules guide the bankruptcy, both church officials and advocates for molestation victims have worked to keep the memo hidden from public view.

The Guardian obtained a copy and noted that the administrative actions outlined within the document starkly contradict transparency promises made by the worldwide Catholic church amid the fallout of its ongoing clerical abuse scandal.

Aymond was among those who offered up those promises when – faced with mounting pressure to come clean about clerical molestation in New Orleans – he published the first version of a list of dozens of priests and deacons who were considered by his archdiocese to be credibly accused sex predators.

Archbishop Gregory Aymond conducts a procession to lead an Easter mass in St Louis cathedral in New Orleans, in April 2020.

“We have published the names of all those … whom we saw substantiated sexual abuse,” Aymond said during a radio interview on the day of the list’s publication. “My promise is … to be transparent now and in the future.”

Meanwhile, a priest, canon lawyer and vocal critic of the worldwide church, Tom Doyle, said he believes the memo’s contents potentially establish violations of the spirit of landmark 2019 legislation from Pope Francis which is aimed at combating sexual abuse in the worldwide Catholic church.

Doyle, a clerical abuse victim advocate, noted that the so-called Vos estis lux mundi – which means “you are the light of the world” – outlines an obligation to report molestation involving both children and adults who are considered vulnerable.

Other measures of the legislation – which the pope permanently decreed earlier this year – also generally eliminate secrecy requirements for witnesses to misconduct while also calling for the protection of people who report alleged church abuse and possible discipline for officials found to have engaged in cover-ups.

“Unfortunately … the bishops say one thing and do another,” Doyle said upon learning of the memo’s contents. “And one of the things that I’ve noticed in many years of involvement in this … is the culture of audacity.

“They lie all the time, and they lie to protect themselves … And if that’s what’s really going on, it needs to be exposed.”

With respect to one of the priests mentioned in the memo, William O’Donnell, Aymond authorized separate financial settlements of $125,000 and $100,000 for out-of-court resolutions with two people. Those claimants accused O’Donnell of molestation, and the settlement sums come out to an amount that organizations would probably not pay if they had doubts about the allegations’ truthfulness.

Aymond, since becoming New Orleans’s archbishop in 2009, also greenlighted a relatively substantial $87,500 payment to privately settle a molestation claim against a seventh priest – Jerry Dabria – before barring the advisory review board from even considering the allegation for potential credibility.

But it has examined hundreds of documents pertaining to two clerical abuse cases cited in the memo – including one of the five which Aymond ignored after the board of advisors found what it considered to be credible allegations of child abuse. And the memo accurately summarized them.

Two of the cases involve priests whose names have never before been publicly linked to the New Orleans church’s scandal: O’Donnell and Joseph Benson. Another involves one whose name hasn’t been mentioned in connection with the scandal for more than 15 years: Luis Henao, who quietly retired before Aymond’s 2018 list release.

The others – Brian Highfill, Paul Hart and Luis Fernandez – have been subjects of media investigations more recently.

Only the late Highfill has ever appeared on Aymond’s credibly accused list – which has grown from fewer than 55 named clerics to more than 70 since it was first published – or faced a law enforcement investigation. Even then, Aymond waited more than two years to add him to that roster.

Also, the list published by Aymond has neglected to include three priests whom a predecessor of his reported to a suburban New Orleans district attorney’s office for possible criminal prosecution of abuse claims.

During the worldwide Catholic church’s decades-long clerical abuse scandal, allegation review boards like the one under Aymond have been criticized as being overly secretive, undermining victims’ claims, protecting clergymen’s reputations and helping the church avoid having to pay damages, as an Associated Press investigation reported in 2019. But as was seen in New Orleans, even when the board sided with an accuser, it was meaningless if the archbishop refused to endorse the body’s recommendation.

Aymond declined to respond to a detailed list of questions provided by the Guardian, saying that doing so “would neither be helpful nor in the spirit of the court’s” confidentiality rules.

But he did prepare a statement in which he asserted: “I do not act alone” and “In each instance, I can assure you that decisions were made and actions were taken based upon the information and in consultation with lay professionals and experts as well as church leadership.”

Aymond’s statement said he pledged to “continue to learn from the past”. But he added, among other things, that he was “more focused on the present and the future”, especially strengthening protocols for responding to allegations of abuse as well as programs which the archdiocese has said are meant to protect both children and “vulnerable” adults.

Highfill, Hart and Dabria are now dead.

Henao’s brother and Fernandez himself confirmed to the Guardian that the archdiocese cut off their retirement benefits after the judge overseeing the organization’s bankruptcy ordered the church to stop such payments for clergymen faced with credible accusations of abuse.

Fernandez believes the archdiocese’s lead lawyer even told him that his retirement benefits – with the exception of a stipend for medication – were being cut off because the allegations against him were credible.

But Fernandez correctly noted that he has never been put on Aymond’s credibly accused list.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

August 6, 2023August 5, 2023

San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese ‘Likely’ to File for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

By Joel Umanzor

San Francisco’s Catholic Archdiocese will “likely” be filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy amid hundreds of lawsuits filed against the church in recent years, according to a statement by the church’s archbishop.

The decision to file for Chapter 11, according to Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, would allow the archdiocese to continue to operate while reorganizing its finances and handling the cases all together rather than individually.

“For several months now, with the assistance of our financial and legal advisors, we have been investigating the best options for managing and resolving these cases,” Cordileone said. “After much contemplation and prayer, I wish to inform you that a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization is very likely.”

During his tenure as archbishop of San Francisco, Cordileone has grappled with decades-long sexual-abuse scandals that have seized the church while overseeing an $87 million settlement.

The filing comes almost three months after the Catholic Diocese of Oakland announced it had also filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in light of 330 lawsuits.

Cordileone pointed to 500 civil cases that were filed against the Archdiocese after California removed the statue of limitations on sexual abuse claims for non-profits in 2019.

“… The vast majority of the alleged abuse occurred in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s and involved priests who are deceased or no longer in ministry,” he said. “In addition to deceased individuals who can no longer defend themselves, a significant number of these claims include unnamed individuals or named individuals who are unknown to the Archdiocese.”

The bankruptcy will not affect the Archdiocese’s parishes and schools, according to Cordileone, which will continue to operate normally.

Melanie Sakoda, a spokesperson for the nonprofit Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), called into question the bankruptcy filing as an attempt to shortchange victims of abuse.

“We seriously doubt that the Archdiocese of San Francisco does not have the assets to settle these lawsuits,” she told The Standard in an email. “The Archdiocese may indeed be morally bankrupt, as evidenced by their refusal to publish information about abusers that are known to them, but we doubt that they are really financially bankrupt.”

According to the U.S. Courts, a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing is when the debtor remains “in possession,” has the powers and duties of a trustee, may continue to operate its business, and may, with court approval, borrow new money. The debtor also usually proposes a plan of reorganization to keep its business alive and pay creditors over time.

Sakoda said that, if the Archdiocese files for Chapter 11, SNAP hopes a federal judge will review assets and property.

“If they do file, we hope that the federal judge closely examines their real estate holdings, which are spread across three of the richest counties in the United States, as well as any recent transfers of those assets to other entities,” she said.

The Archdiocese, according to the church’s website, is “unclear” about how long the bankruptcy process would take.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

July 20, 2023July 19, 2023

Another New York diocese files for bankruptcy

By Joe Bukuras

The Diocese of Ogdensburg, New York, is filing for bankruptcy following almost 140 sexual abuse lawsuits for incidents dating back decades filed under the state’s Child Victims Act, which allowed claims to be filed past the statute of limitations for a period of two years ending in 2021.

Fourteen cases so far have either been settled or dismissed, leaving 124 claims of child sexual abuse against the diocese, Darcy Fargo, a diocesan spokeswoman, told CNA.

The purpose of the bankruptcy filing is so that the diocese may be able to compensate each victim and continue serving the faithful with its services and ministries, Ogensburg Bishop Terry LaValley said in his July 17 letter to the faithful of the diocese.

Ogdensburg is the fifth diocese in the state of New York to file for bankruptcy following the passing of the Child Victims Act in 2019. Now, only the Archdiocese of New York has not filed for bankruptcy as a result of the legislation.

Several other dioceses across the nation have also filed for bankruptcy amid similar state legislation.

LaValley said that facing the civil suits in court would be a “slow” and “unpredictable” process that would be costly, delaying justice and compensation for survivors.

“Reorganization ensures that each survivor receives just compensation. It eliminates a race to the courthouse in which the earliest cases settled or brought to judgment could exhaust the resources available to pay claims, leaving nothing for victims whose cases are resolved later,” he said.

“As we embark on this journey towards reorganization, I ask you to join me to pray for all victims of child sexual abuse. May this process give them a sense of peace and bring them healing that comes from God alone,” LaValley said.

Parishes and other related Catholic entities are separate corporations in New York, so only the diocese will be filing for bankruptcy, LaValley said.

He said he hopes the diocese’s bankruptcy filing will resolve all the claims against parishes and Catholic entities as well.

“It is likely that parishes will be asked to contribute funds to settle these claims so they can be free of litigation in state courts and released from all liability for existing claims,” he added.

LaValley said the decision to file for bankruptcy was “difficult and painful yet necessary.”

He apologized to child victims of clergy sexual abuse and abuse from other Church employees. He also apologized for the suffering that victims and their families went through as a result of sexual abuse.

“I remain committed to helping victims find hope, healing, and some peace of mind. I remain equally committed to maintaining a safe environment in our Church for all, especially our children and young people,” he said.

“Filing for reorganization does not hinder claims filed by victims of sexual abuse. Rather, it establishes a process for all claims to be treated fairly. Reorganization enables the diocese to resolve the claims in one court in an efficient and timely manner,” LaValley added.

The bishop said that the diocese will be able to continue offering its programs, services, and ministries as a result of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

“With the help of our advisers, we will evaluate diocesan assets to determine how we can maintain our mission while seeking to compensate victims fairly. We will continue our mission,” he said.

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