WeeklySA_AdminREPARATIONS: New York diocese offers compensation ranging from approximately R1 million to R2 million to each of the 600 abuse victims in largest-ever settlement offer…
By Tina Dennelly
In what it called its “best and final” offer to survivors of sexual abuse, the Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre in New York this week proposed a plan that offers about R3,7 billion to approximately 600 survivors of abuse – the largest-ever settlement offer made in diocesan history.
The new proposed compensation plan includes an immediate cash payout of a minimum of nearly R2 million to abuse victims with a lawsuit and about R1 million minimum to other claimants without a qualifying lawsuit.
In a statement released this week, the Long Island diocese called the plan “the best, most efficient, and most effective means to immediately begin compensating all eligible survivors equitably while allowing the diocese to emerge from bankruptcy and continue its charitable mission.”
“The settlement offer includes a diocesan contribution of R900 million as well as a nearly R3 billion contribution from “parishes, co-insured parties, and other Catholic ministries,” according to the statement.
“The diocese agrees with Bankruptcy Court Judge Martin Glenn, who is overseeing the case, that survivors have waited too long for compensation and that any alternative to a global settlement plan creates chaos that puts both survivor compensation and the futures of parishes at risk,” the statement continued.
In recent years, the Catholic Church has been wracked by revelations by tens of thousands of victims worldwide, alleging sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church over several decades in an unprecedented issue of justice.
Investigations and shocking revelations about sex crimes committed by clergy are spreading to more and more countries, even in some cases victims’ associations often deplore the slowness or lack of concrete judicial or paralegal developments to address the complaints.
On Monday this week, the diocese said it “has already made it clear that it is at the end of its resources. … Continuing to prolong the case, or dismissing the case, will ensure that payments to survivors only go down from the current settlement offer contained in the plan.”
According to Reuters, James Stang, a representative of the official committee of abuse survivors in the case, said claimants would not vote for the new plan because it would eliminate legal claims against individual parishes.
The Diocese of Rockville Centre filed for bankruptcy in October 2020 after the passage of the Child Victims Act in New York in 2019 allowed for sex abuse lawsuits to be filed in past cases where survivors had not yet taken action, long after the statute of limitations had expired.
“Survivors deserve a settlement now. The Diocese hopes that all parties, including survivors and their legal advisors, will vote in favour of the equitable and unprecedented offer in the Plan,” the statement said.
The diocese is one of six in the state of New York to have declared bankruptcy; only the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn have not filed for bankruptcy.
South Africa
According to the website bishop.accountability.org which records cases of sexual abuse by Catholic Church officials, US bishops alone reported receiving allegations of abuse of 18,565 children involving 6,721 priests for proven or alleged facts over the period 1950-2016 — or 5.8 percent of the 116,690 US priests between 1950 and 2016. Regarding Catholic bishops, the site has identified 78 Catholic bishops worldwide publicly accused of sexual crimes against children and 35 publicly accused of sexual misconduct against adults.
In South Africa, there have been 37 known cases of sexual abuse by Catholic priests since 2003, of which only seven have been investigated by the police, according to the French newspaper La Croix.
In Switzerland, victims and activists belonging to the Ending Clergy Abuse association demonstrated in Geneva to denounce sex crimes in the Catholic Church IN 2018. Five years on, a first report on the Swiss Church has been published, but victims are expecting much more.
It draws up a provisional inventory of 1,002 victims of sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests and members of the Swiss Church since 1950. Released on September 12 in Zurich, the “pilot project report on sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Switzerland since the mid-20th century” has triggered a series of reactions with as yet unknown consequences.
A year earlier, a compensation commission had been set up by the Swiss Bishops’ Conference. According to the report, “up to the beginning of 2023, compensation had been paid in 168 cases, totalling 2,5 million Swiss francs from the compensation fund set up for this purpose”.
This fund is financed by various bodies within the Swiss Church.
