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	Update 2-U.S. Catholic Diocese Files for Ch. 11 Reuters October 19, 2009 http://www.reuters.com/article/bankruptcyNews/idUSBNG13147120091019 WILMINGTON, Del., Oct 19 (Reuters) - Delaware's Catholic Diocese of Wilmington Inc filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, court documents showed on Sunday, in the face of more than 140 claims filed by people who said they were victims of sexual abuse by the diocese's priests. The diocese became the seventh in the United States to seek bankruptcy protection and its filing came one day before the scheduled start of a civil trial against a defrocked priest. "This is a painful decision, one that I had hoped and prayed I would never have to make," Wilmington Bishop W. Francis Malooly said in a statement on the diocese website. "However ... I believe we have no other choice and that filing for Chapter 11 offers the best opportunity, given finite resources, to provide the fairest possible treatment of all victims of sexual abuse by priests of our diocese." In the filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on Sunday, the diocese listed estimated assets of $50 million to $100 million and estimated liabilities of $100 million to $500 million. Malooly said three years ago his predecessor, the late Bishop Michael Saltarelli, released the names of 18 Diocesan priests who had admitted, corroborated or otherwise substantiated allegations of abuse of minors. "All such information is in the court records of the cases scheduled for trial on Oct. 19, and we believe that no significant new facts would have emerged at trial," Malooly said. The diocese faces 142 claims and Malooly said it had been negotiating an agreement with all abuse claimants. When those talks failed, and with the civil trials set to begin, the bishop said the decision was made to file for court protection. The 140-year-old Wilmington diocese serves 233,000 Roman Catholics and covers 58 parishes and 27 schools in Delaware and part of Maryland. The archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, became the first to file for Chapter 11 in 2004, followed by the diocese of San Diego; Tucson, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; Davenport, Iowa; and Fairbanks, Alaska. The Roman Catholic Church has been rocked by cases of sexual abuse by priests around the world in the past decade and the church's response to the charges often set off accusations of cover-ups . In the United States, Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law, then the most senior Catholic official in the country, resigned in 2002 over his handling of sexual abuse cases. The Los Angeles archdiocese paid $660 million to 500 abuse victims in 2007 in the largest compensation deal of its kind. The abuse case scheduled to begin in Delaware on Monday was filed by a 57-year-old man who said that when he was an altar boy he was abused by Francis G. DeLuca, a now defrocked priest who worked in the diocese for 35 years and is involved in at least 20 cases.
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