U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn confirmed Rockville Centre Diocese's bankruptcy plan at a court hearing in Manhattan, saying that the settlement was a “remarkable” achievement after the diocese spent four difficult years in bankruptcy.
“I understand that money alone cannot make up for the trauma that so many have lived with for so many years,” Glenn said. “I hope that confirming the plan today will speed the process of providing survivors with compensation and will help put this terrible history behind them so that the church can carry on its important mission without the distraction of the bankruptcy process.”
The diocese serves about 1.2 million Catholics in Nassau and Suffolk counties, and it is the 8th-largest diocese in the U.S.
The diocese and its parishes will contribute $234.8 million to the settlement, four insurance companies will contribute $85 million, and attorneys who represented abuse survivors in bankruptcy will contribute another $3 million.
The Rockville Centre Diocese said in a statement that it hopes the settlement brings some measure of healing to survivors who showed courage and perseverance by speaking up about their abuse.
"Victim survivors of child abuse deserve our respect, our prayers, and our pastoral support," the diocese said.
The diocese had filed for bankruptcy in 2020 after New York and other states enacted laws that temporarily enabled victims of child sexual abuse to file lawsuits over decades-old crimes.
Similar laws in California and other U.S. states have pushed over two dozen Catholic diocese to seek bankruptcy protection in recent years. But Rockville Centre lingered in bankruptcy longer than most, and its settlement talks came close to failing after abuse survivors roundly rejected the diocese’s previous $200 million settlement offer.
At different stages of the case, the diocese, the abuse survivors and Judge Glenn had each suggested the bankruptcy should be dismissed if no deal could be reached.
Glenn, who last year said he was willing to be the first judge in the U.S. to kick a Catholic Diocese out of bankruptcy, instead became the first judge in New York to approve a diocese’s bankruptcy plan. Five other dioceses out of the state's eight have also filed for bankruptcy and are working toward settlements of similar sex abuse claims.
Rockville Centre’s case also faced additional uncertainty after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling stopped bankruptcy courts from signing off on legal protections for people and entities that had not filed for bankruptcy themselves.
That ruling, in the bankruptcy case of Oxycontin maker Purdue Pharma, shot down a legal framework that Catholic dioceses previously used to collect settlement payments from their parishes and insurers while shielding them from sex abuse lawsuits.
Rockville Centre reacted to the Supreme Court’s ruling by reaching new settlements with its insurers and by placing all of its 136 parishes into bankruptcy, where their assets and liabilities were subject to court oversight.
The parishes' bankruptcies and their settlement contributions were approved on an expedited basis as part of the broader agreement between the diocese and abuse survivors. James Stang, an attorney for abuse survivors, said in court that the agreement was a model for other dioceses that are grappling with the Purdue decision's impact on bankruptcy law.