The Catholic Diocese of Wilmington,
which oversees churches in Delaware and part of Maryland, will
increase its offer to pay victims of sexual abuse by priests
under a new plan to exit bankruptcy.
The maximum payout would exceed $349,000, on average, for
the 157 adults who claim to have been molested as children,
church lawyer Anthony Flynn said in an interview today.
The
exact range will be disclosed next week when the diocese files a
new reorganization plan, church attorney Robert Brady told the
judge overseeing its bankruptcy in Wilmington, Delaware.
“You can expect the average to be higher, much higher,”
Flynn said after the hearing.
Under the current plan, the alleged victims would split
between $32.9 million and $54.9 million, with the money coming
from cash, insurance and other investments held by the diocese,
according to court documents.
Catholic entities that aren’t in
bankruptcy will help finance the payments, Brady told U.S.
Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi.
Attorneys for abuse victims haven’t seen the offer, said
Robert Jacobs, who represents more than 90 people who claim they
were abused by diocese priests.
It will probably be higher than
a settlement proposed as part of court-ordered arbitration, he
said.
“If not, then somebody has been smoking marijuana,”
Jacobs said in an interview after the hearing.
Previous Payments
The diocese’s average payout may exceed those of its
bankrupt peers, according to court records.
The average payment
was $323,000 in the bankruptcy cases of the Roman Catholic
dioceses of Davenport, Iowa; Spokane, Washington; Portland,
Oregon; and Tucson, Arizona, according to court records filed in
Wilmington.
Separately, a group of non-ordained church employees sued
the Wilmington diocese in bankruptcy court, asking a judge to
protect $4.4 million in a church investment pool from being used
to help pay abuse victims.
The group says the church erred by
pooling annual pension payments with its other cash.
The cash pool may be used to pay abuse victims and other
creditors of the diocese under the proposed reorganization plan.
Sontchi said today that the lawsuit resembles the claims of
individual parishes, which said in court papers that their money
was mistakenly put into the diocese investment pool.
In 2009, the Delaware diocese became one of at least six in
the U.S. to file for bankruptcy to settle lawsuits from current
and former parishioners who say they were sexually molested by
priests.
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which serves 644,000
Catholics in southeastern Wisconsin, today filed for bankruptcy
citing cases alleging sexual abuse by priests.
The petition
listed as much as $50 million in debts, not including any
payments that may need to be made related to personal-injury
lawsuits.
The bankruptcy case is In re Catholic Diocese of Wilmington
Inc., 09-13560, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware,
(Wilmington).
SIC: B'berg/USA