UNITED STATES
Wall Street Journal
By KATY STECH
…
Advocates for alleged clergy sexual-abuse victims connected to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis want a judge to extend the deadline that alleged victims have to speak up.
On Thursday, Judge Robert Kressel will hear a request from the bankrupt archdiocese’s creditor committee to push back the current Aug. 3 deadline to May 25. Committee officials are asking alleged abuse victims to come forward and file so-called proof of claims against the archdiocese before that deadline, potentially enabling that victim to split a pot of settlement money of an undetermined amount.
Committee officials say archdiocese officials haven’t done a thorough job of informing the public of the Aug. 3 deadline by publishing notices in national, Catholic and local newspapers. While archdiocese officials say many parishes have mentioned the deadline in their weekly bulletins, creditors committee who analyzed bulletins published online found that 25 of 89 parishes failed to publish any notice in their online bulletins through the middle of June 2015.
The archdiocese filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January to halt several abuse-related lawsuits from going to trial. Since then, several hundred alleged abuse victims have come forward with claims against the archdiocese, according to victims’ lawyers.
The archdiocese is also facing criminal charges—an unprecedented maneuver—for its alleged role in endangering children.
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