The Archdiocese of San Francisco has filed for bankruptcy protection as it faces more than 500 child molestation lawsuits.
“The sad reality is that the archdiocese has neither the financial resources nor the practical means to pursue individual lawsuits over all of these abuses,” Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said in a statement.
“Therefore, after careful consideration, he has concluded that bankruptcy proceedings are the best course of action to provide fair and equitable compensation to the innocent survivors who have been injured,” he added.
Parishes, schools, cemeteries and related organizations are not affected by this bankruptcy.
The network of priest abuse survivors is skeptical of this decision.
“We seriously doubt that the Archdiocese of San Francisco cannot afford to settle these lawsuits,” he said. “We find it disturbing that Archbishop Cordileone has claimed that this is the ‘best way’ to settle the victims’ grievances.”
“The vast majority of the more than 500 applications stem from allegations of sexual abuse that occurred 30 years or more ago and involved priests who are no longer in office or who have died,” the archbishop said.
That bankruptcy comes on the heels of that of the Catholic Diocese of Oakland, also in the San Francisco Bay Area, which received more than 300 sexual abuse complaints.