The Catholic Church has spent millions of dollars lobbying against laws that would allow survivors of alleged church abuse a longer statute of limitations. This is because the sheer number of suspected cases of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy is astronomical. While the Catholic Church had been successful in withstanding public outcry for years, their political power has slowly eroded.
On August 14, the Child Victims Act went into affect in New York. The Child Victims Act allows childhood victims of sexual assault the chance to file lawsuits over the next year against the alleged perpetrators of these heinous crimes—including crimes that had up until recently been considered past the statute of limitations for such lawsuits. Hundreds of lawsuits were filed that August 14 morning. And as of early Monday morning, TIME Magazine reported that the New York Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester is seeking bankruptcy protections from these lawsuits.
There are eight Roman Catholic dioceses affected by the laws and whether or not the others will follow suit with Rochester remains to be seen. Complainants still have until August of 2020 to file a lawsuit against one of them, and the amount of lawsuits that are filed will likely determine how many more dioceses claim bankruptcy. You can see a listing of lawsuits against the church here.
Rochester’s bishop, Salvatore Matano, told TIME that this bankruptcy filing will be a good thing for the victims, “Had the diocese not filed under Chapter 11, it would face multiple civil actions, a slow, unpredictable and costly process that would require years of court involvement and those claimants who filed suits first would receive all available funds to pay victims. As a result, later claimants would receive nothing.”
Bishop Matano was not alone in looking at this development as a positive one. One of the more intriguing aspects of this bankruptcy filing is that a lot of the historically secretive financial records of the churches will be subject to public viewing. Michael Pfau, an attorney representing some of the victims who have filed suit, told reporters that there can be a silvery lining here, as church bankruptcies are not the same thing as for-profit business bankruptcies. "Bankruptcy in the context of the Catholic Church is a misunderstood thing, in that this isn't a liquidation, it's a reorganization. The Catholic Church in Rochester will continue. Its mission won't be affected. It won't sell churches and schools and a hospital, but it will be a painful process for them, a self-inflicted painful process."
But while filing for bankruptcy does not immunize the diocese from lawsuits, there are questions as to whether or not this bankruptcy will allow the church to hide some of the more salacious evidence from the public and protect the Catholic Church from larger payouts to victims. The Catholic Church has not been able to garner a ton of moral support over the past few years from the public. Its history of mishandling sexual abuse and molestation claims by its parishioners against its clergy has soured many people’s opinions of the wealthy organization. It also hasn’t helped that the biggest defenders for the church spend most of their time victim blaming and calling the mountains of evidence fake news.