SYRACUSE (NY)
Post-Standard - Syracuse.com [Syracuse NY]
April 1, 2025
By Jon Moss
Abuse survivors voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bankruptcy exit plan for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse, moving it closer to final confirmation.
Each of the 324 survivors who returned a ballot voted to approve the plan and consented to its terms, according to data released late last month.
The centerpiece of the 94-page bankruptcy exit plan is a $100 million fund to pay abuse survivors if they end their lawsuits against the church.
A confirmation hearing on the plan is scheduled to begin April 28 in federal bankruptcy court in Syracuse and could last for days or weeks. Some survivors are expected to provide testimony.
Wendy Kinsella, the chief bankruptcy judge for the Northern District of New York, would then either approve or reject the plan.
Survivors need to sign off on the plan since they are among the diocese’s creditors.
Survivors already voted in large numbers to support an earlier version of the plan. That version was scrapped after a ruling last year by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The ruling struck at the heart of the diocese’s proposed plan, which would distribute millions of dollars to abuse survivors if they agree not to pursue further legal claims against the diocese and more than 250 other Catholic institutions.
The court ruled in late June in an unrelated case involving Purdue Pharma, the company at the center of the opioid crisis, that an arrangement forbidding legal action can violate federal bankruptcy law.
In a 5-4 decision, the court said proper “consent” is needed for such protections to organizations that didn’t themselves declare bankruptcy. It did not specify how consent would be shown.
Diocese lawyers originally said they thought the bankruptcy exit plan didn’t need to change to meet the Supreme Court’s new standard.
They later went through several rounds of revisions, delaying final confirmation, before settling on the plan that survivors have now approved. One of the revisions is asking survivors to show they consent to the plan.
Bishop Douglas Lucia previously said the diocese would cover half of the $100 million fund, with the rest paid by parishes, schools, missions and Catholic Charities. If split evenly among the parishes, each would face an average bill of nearly $400,000.
The $100 million is what local Catholic institutions have agreed to pay on their own to survivors; any money from insurance companies would be on top of that money, officials said.
The diocese filed for bankruptcy in June 2020 as it faced a growing number of sex abuse claims.
Headquartered in Syracuse, the diocese has nearly 200,000 members across 116 parishes in seven counties, 10 missions and seven oratories. It employs about 3,000 people.
Staff writer Jon Moss covers breaking news, crime and public safety. He can be reached at jmoss@syracuse.com or @mossjon7.