June 18, 2024 The Catholic Diocese of Sacramento is the latest diocese to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy following a wave of civil lawsuits filed by victims who were abused by clergy and other church employees dating back to the 1950s.
Facing more than 250 lawsuits, church officials in Sacramento said the bankruptcy declaration clears the way for legal settlements with victims.
“There are many victim-survivors who have long suffered from the reprehensible sins committed against them,” said Bishop James Soto of the Sacramento Diocese. “This reorganization process will allow me to respond to them as equitably as possible… It is the sickening sin of sexual abuse — and the failure of church leadership to address it appropriately — that brought us to this place.”
The Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has been critical of the move to seek bankruptcy protection. Under bankruptcy law, sex abuse victims who have filed lawsuits are considered “creditors,” while victims who have not yet filed claims could potentially be excluded.
“The court will allow a certain period of time for other ‘creditors’ — victims — to come forward,” the organization said in a March 2024 statement. “However, once the bankruptcy proceeds to its conclusion, anyone abused before the filing day who did not come forward is barred from ever filing a lawsuit. This would include those who do not remember their abuse, those who do not understand the impact it has had on their life, those who are not yet ready to speak out, and — most disturbingly — those children who are too you to understand that they needed to file a claim before the bar date.”
The diocese has set up a webpage at scd.org/chapter-11-bankruptcy with additional information.
California Sex Abuse Victims Seek Answers
As more details emerge about the extent of abuse that occurred within the church, the SNAP organization has requested access to findings from the attorney general’s three-year investigation into Catholic sex abuse in California.
In 2019, California passed the California Child Victims Act, which extended the statute of limitations for survivors of sexual assault across the state. Victims are now able to file lawsuits up to either five years from the discovery of the assault or until they reach age 40, whichever comes first. The bill also included a special window of time in which any survivor of sexual abuse could file a claim, no matter their age, through Dec. 31, 2022. In addition, the law sets higher levels of financial damages against parties who are proven to have covered up claims of sexual abuse.
This act resulted in more than 3,000 sexual abuse lawsuits in that time period. Many of the dioceses have filed bankruptcy already, while others have announced plans to do so. Church leaders say many of their assets have been depleted settling previous waves of sexual abuse cases. The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego has even been accused of trying to hide assets to prevent them from being used to pay settlements to survivors.
Other States Remove Time Limits on Sexual Abuse Claims
California is not the only state to extend the times in which survivors can come forward to sue perpetrators and enablers of sexual abuse against children. Vermont, Maine, Maryland and others have passed similar laws repealing the time limits for child sex crime lawsuits.
For generations, many survivors have felt alone, lived in fear, or even doubted their own memories. These changes to the statutes of limitations are designed to provide better access to justice for survivors.
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