Hundreds of sexual abuse cases force San Francisco’s Catholic Church to file for bankruptcy. In a statement, leaders of 88 churches in three Bay counties announced the decision. They argue the process is necessary as it will help them “manage and resolve” more than 500 complaints of sex crimes committed by their religious between the 1960s and 1980s in court. The legal strategy is known as Chapter 11 in the US legislature, it has received much support from other archdioceses facing the same problem.
“The unfortunate reality is that the Archdiocese does not have the sufficient resources or practical ability to process all of these allegations of sexual abuse individually,” Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said in the church’s statement released Monday night . “It is the best way to give the survivors the much-needed solution,” the religious added. Most of these cases in the United States are resolved through out-of-court settlements. In this way, those responsible for the crimes avoid a public trial that could bring lurid details to light.
The Archdiocese has said the trial, which will take place in the Northern California Judicial District, will allow each lawsuit to be evaluated individually, which should result in more “transparency” in paying damages to victims of clerical pedophilia. “This is a court-supervised process […] That gives a voice to those who claim it,” the document said. The diocese reiterates that all of the cases are old cases involving priests “who are no longer in office or who have died.”
Cordileone has used the announcement to ensure these are “very rare” abuse cases today. “Thanks to the educational and preventive measures we have taken, I believe the church has become an example of the standards set by other organizations, showing what can and should be done to protect our children,” he said. Measures taken included background analysis of all pastors and social workers who came to parishes, provision of therapy and help to survivors of abuse, and suspension of pastoral care for said religious. The Archbishop says his diocese, which serves about 442,000 Catholics, had already begun to make changes before the 2002 General Convention approved a plan to protect minors.
This is the second time the local Catholic Church has faced such a wave of lawsuits. The California government created a window twenty years ago that allowed survivors to go to court to report abuses mandated by the justice system. Capitalizing on demands from the MeToo movement, local law enforcement in 2019 introduced a similar time limit for victims to file legal claims through a civil proceeding. The term was valid until December 31 of the previous year. According to the Archdiocese, “a significant portion of the lawsuits involve anonymous or unnamed individuals.”
According to the Archdiocese, these two events prompted the Catholic Church to spend around $70 million to reach an out-of-court settlement with abuse survivors. This money was raised through the use of insurance premiums and through the sale of properties the institution owned in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin counties. Monsignor Cordileone assures that the donations and handouts from the parishioners will not be used to clarify allegations of abuse. “According to a very old legal and moral principle, the intention of the donor must always be respected,” the Archbishop explained in another letter.
This is the third San Francisco-area diocese to file for bankruptcy following an avalanche of allegations. That same year, the Catholic offices in the cities of Oakland and Santa Rosa followed the same path. Oakland has about 330 suspected cases of clergyman pedophilia, while Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco, says it has yet to settle about 150 lawsuits filed in recent years. In 2007, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in California, paid a record $660 million in compensation to victims of clergy abuse. It is just one of 22 dioceses that have reached a multi-million dollar out-of-court settlement with the survivors of these crimes.
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