OAKLAND (CA)
The Oaklandside [Oakland CA]
November 14, 2024
By Jose Fermoso
The diocese says survivors’ fund would be worth between $160 million and $198 million.
A year after the Oakland Diocese filed for bankruptcy protection due to hundreds of sex abuse lawsuits, its exit plan has been released. It mainly involves selling a local real estate asset and borrowing from the Roman Catholic Church.
The lawsuits came about after the California state legislature in 2018 passed Assembly Bill 218, which extended the statute of limitations to victims of abuse. In all 345 people filed lawsuits against the diocese alleging sexual abuse at dozens of its churches and schools, with most of the incidents occurring between 1960 and 1990.
The reorganization plan, submitted Friday, is awaiting confirmation by a federal bankruptcy court. It is expected to create a survivors’ trust that the diocese says is worth between $160 million and $198 million.
A survivors group slammed the plan as a “sham of an offer” and urged the court to reject it.
The initial settlement amount will be only $65 million, most of it coming from a $55 million loan from the Roman Catholic Church, with additional payments of $10 million over the next four years. Most of the rest of the money will come from a property in Livermore that the diocese says could be worth up to $81 million. It will be up to the survivors’ trust to sell and realize the value of that property.
The survivors’ attorneys and advocacy organizations have already criticized this last point, saying the initial settlement amount was low.
“This is a really, really wealthy diocese, and there are a lot of victims,” Dan McNevin, from the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), told KRON 4.
One of the lawyers, Jeff Anderson, said that research estimated the diocese’s assets at $3.4 billion and that it had undervalued them to “deceive” people, including survivors seeking redress.
SNAP said the diocese was “surely morally bankrupt” and that it could have quickly compensated all of the victims by selling off more of its property in Piedmont, Orinda, Lafayette, and Danville.
“Their families trusted the priests who assaulted their children, and those families donated time and money to the Diocese. They helped to compensate the clergy who damaged their children’s lives,” a SNAP statement said. It concluded: “Except for character and integrity, it is not poor. Our hope is that the federal bankruptcy court will see through this sham of an offer.”
The potential liability for the diocese based on individual claimant cases was in the billions.
If it accepts the reorganization plan, the bankruptcy court will appoint a trustee to manage the survivors’ trust.
In announcing the reorganization plan, Oakland Bishop Michael Barber apologized for the “terrible suffering” by the survivors of sexual abuse.
“I and everyone in the Diocese of Oakland remain committed to the healing of survivors and their families and to ensure no clergy, religious, employee or volunteer who would abuse a child can be in any ministry in our church,” Barber said in a statement. “No amount of money can fully and satisfactorily compensate survivors for the abuse they suffered. Bearing that in mind, we believe the plan compensates survivors in a fair and equitable way.”
The reorganization plan restated the diocese’s previous commitment to requiring staff and volunteers of the church to agree to criminal background checks and continue developing sex abuse prevention training.
Determining how the millions will be apportioned to each sex abuse survivor will depend on the details of their individual cases. There will be a claims reviewer who will create a point value system assigning a level of injury. The reorganization plan also allows each survivor to sue the diocese’s insurers for additional money.
In a message updating the Oakland diocese flock in October, Barber said that the church saw the bankruptcy and the spotlight of the sex abuse lawsuits as a moment “of purification for our Church and Diocese.” In the Catholic faith, purification is associated with the purging of sins and is related to acts like confession.
If the bankruptcy settlement plan eventually reaches $198 million, it will match the settlement the San Diego Diocese agreed to in 2007. That settlement, however, was provided to 144 claimants, averaging $1.375 million. Oakland’s would average between $463,000 and $573,000.
A more recent $880 million settlement by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles provided funds to claimants more quickly because that organization did not go through bankruptcy court.
According to data gathered by Prof. Marie T. Reilly at Penn State Law, who has been following U.S. Catholic diocese bankruptcy court filings, the settlement amount could be one of the biggest in the country. Only the Minneapolis and St. Paul Archdiocese in Minnesota has a larger settlement, at $210 million, with the Santa Fe Archdiocese in New Mexico and the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus religious order also in the vicinity, at $132 million and $162 million, respectively.
As of last month, 40 U.S. Catholic organizations had sought bankruptcy protection to pay for sex abuse settlements.
In Oakland, the diocese has created an office for counseling for survivors and their families. SNAP provides virtual support groups at least once a month, with Bay Area meetings happening the fourth Wednesday of every month.