By Ian Urbina
The New York Times
October 20, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/us/20delaware.html?_r=1
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| Bishop W. Francis Malooly called the decision painful. Photo by Steve Ruark/Associated Press |
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, Del., said Monday that it had filed for bankruptcy to manage the potential liability resulting from a flood of lawsuits on sexual abuse by members of the clergy.
The Chapter 11 filing, which freezes all pending litigation against the diocese, came as the first of some eight lawsuits was scheduled to go to trial in Kent County Superior Court.
Lawyers for the diocese and the plaintiffs spent much of the weekend in an effort to negotiate a settlement. The breakdown of those negotiations makes the diocese the first on the East Coast to file for bankruptcy, joining six other dioceses that have sought protection in bankruptcy under the weight of claims of sexual abuse.
The filing also represents a setback for the Delaware Child Victims Act of 2007, which was passed to bring justice to victims of sexual abuse, many of whom had been barred by the statute of limitations from filing suit against their accused abusers. The law permits victims to bring civil cases in Delaware Superior Court during a two-year window that expired in July.
“This is a painful decision,” Bishop W. Francis Malooly said of the bankruptcy filing, “one that I had hoped and prayed I would never have to make. However, after careful consideration and after consultation with my close advisers and counselors, 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.”
Bishop Malooly added, “Our hope is that Chapter 11 proceedings will enable us to fairly compensate all victims through a single process established by the Bankruptcy Court.”
But Thomas S. Neuberger, a lawyer representing 88 people who have accused diocesan priests of sexual abuse, called the bankruptcy filing an “outrage.”
“The filing shows how desperate the diocese is to hide the truth from the public and avoid paying their victims,” said Mr. Neuberger, who on Monday released court documents that would have come out during the trial.
The case that was due to start trial Monday had been filed by John Michael Vai, 57, who says he had been sexually abused by the Rev. Francis G. DeLuca, 79, who served in the diocese for 35 years before he was removed from the priesthood and allowed to retire to his hometown of Syracuse, N.Y. Mr. Vai said the abuse occurred when he was an altar boy at St. Elizabeth Church in Wilmington from 1966 to 1970.
But Bishop Malooly said his concern throughout the negotiations was that too large a settlement with some victims “would leave inadequate resources to fairly compensate” the others, “and continue our ministry.”
Barbara Blaine, president of the advocacy group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said: “There is clearly a national legal plan to avoid public disclosure of the details of abuse. Most victims don’t want money; they want their day in court. They want the truth to come out through discovery and the subpoena of documents, but the bankruptcy tactic is preventing that possibility.”
According to court documents, the diocese and certain parish churches are defendants in 131 sexual-abuse cases.
The diocese has assets of as much as $100 million and liabilities of as much as $500 million, the court papers say. It contains 233,000 Roman Catholics, and has 58 parishes, 21 missions and 27 schools in Delaware and on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
The pending litigation comes in the wake of payments already made in four settlements that averaged more than $1 million, Mr. Neuberger said.
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