NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Nola.com [New Orleans, LA]
May 16, 2024
By Stephanie Riegel
The judge in the Archdiocese of New Orleans bankruptcy case said Thursday she wants to give survivors of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests and deacons an opportunity to tell their stories in court to Archbishop Greg Aymond as a way of helping to bring closure and healing.
But Judge Meredith Grabill denied a request by attorneys for the survivors that would have allowed that reckoning process to begin now. Instead, Grabill said she wants to wait until a settlement plan, which would compensate survivors for past abuse and resolve the bankruptcy case, comes before her court for approval — something that is months away, and could possibly not happen at all.
“I completely envision, if a plan gets filed and we get to a confirmation hearing, allowing survivors to provide testimony … I fully envision the archbishop being here in the courtroom to listen to the evidence,” Grabill said. “But an evidentiary hearing is the appropriate time.”
The ruling comes more than four years after the nation’s second-oldest Roman Catholic diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid mounting claims of clergy sex abuse. At the time, about 30 lawsuits had been filed against the archdiocese, individual parishes and clergy members in civil court. In the years since, about 500 credible claims of past clergy abuse have been filed against some 300 priests and deacons, many of whom died long ago.
But the bankruptcy court process has frozen the civil lawsuits, shielding the church from the sordid and embarrassing details that would have come out in a trial and depriving survivors an opportunity to tell their stories in open court.
The attorneys who filed today’s motion represent about 80 local abuse survivors, many of whom had filed civil lawsuits. They and their clients are increasingly frustrated by the slow pace of progress and the veil of secrecy that has shrouded the case.
“This would be an opportunity to try to get survivors into the courtroom, into the process, and give them an opportunity to say their peace to the court and the archbishop,” attorney Soren Gisleson told Grabill. “It has been four years and almost $40 million later there has not been any meaningful participation by individual abuse survivors in the courtroom to express what happened to them.”
The archdiocese opposed the motion.
“It’s not that we don’t want survivors to talk but to have it done in open court to tell their story I’m not sure that it comports with what we are trying to do in a court of law,” archdiocese attorney Mark Mintz said.
After Grabill denied the motion, Gisleson said he was disappointed, even if his clients eventually have an opportunity to speak out.
“If you wait until a plan has been filed, you’re putting a condition on the survivors,” he said. “They may be more inclined to approve a plan — even if it does not compensate them fairly — just so they have opportunity to speak. We want them to speak unconditionally.”
The archdiocese did not comment after the hearing.
Slow progress
The issue comes as attorneys for the archdiocese and the court-appointed committees representing abuse survivors and commercial creditors appear to be making progress towards a settlement plan, which will likely cost the church and its insurers about $100 million.
Earlier in Thursday’s hearing, archdiocese attorney Mark Mintz told the court that “the two sides are making progress, slow as it is,” and are continuing to meet with court-appointed mediator John Perry.
Grabill approved a request by Mintz to extend Perry’s appointment through September.
In a related development, the Louisiana Supreme Court recently decided to reconsider their March ruling that found the state’s “lookback window,” which allows survivors of child sex abuse more time to file claims against their abusers, unconstitutional. The high court requested briefs from both sides in the case, which stems from allegations of clergy sex abuse in the Diocese of Lafayette, later this month.
Email Stephanie Riegel at stephanie.riegel@theadvocate.com.