Archdiocese Bankruptcy Case Heads Back to Court

WISN
February 29, 2012

http://www.wisn.com/news/30567998/detail.html

[with video]

MILWAUKEE -- The bankruptcy case of the Milwaukee Archdiocese heads back to a federal courtroom Wednesday as an advocacy group has asked the state's attorney general to review abuse claims.

A group of abuse survivors is asking for J.B. Van Hollen to conduct his own investigation into the claims of abuse filed in the bankruptcy proceedings.

Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, went to the attorney general's office Tuesday and asked Van Hollen to have his office review the thousands of pages of claims.

The Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2011 after it felt its legal feeds could exceed its assets.

Archbishop Jerome Listecki said at the time of the bankruptcy filing that nearly $29 million had been spend to address more than 200 claims over the past 20 years.

Listecki said the archdiocese was undergoing reorganization for two reasons: to be able to compensate victims and survivors while also allowing the church to continue its mission.

Part of the bankruptcy case required the Archdiocese to ask more victims to come forward. Advocacy groups like SNAP also worked to have victims file a claim ahead of the filing deadline earlier this month.

A federal bankruptcy judge ruled that more than 500 cases filed as part of the bankruptcy proceedings will be allowed to go to trial. Those new cases expose 100 additional alleged abusers -- 70 of them priests -- who have never been named before

The Milwaukee archdiocese is the eighth in the U.S. to seek bankruptcy protection since the scandal in the Catholic Church came to light in 2002.

The archdiocese has just over 200 parishes that are individually incorporated. Because individual churches and Catholic schools are technically separate from the archdiocese, Listecki says they won't be directly affected by the bankruptcy, which could take another year to settle.