NEW MEXICO
National Catholic Reporter
Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola | Apr. 14, 2016
GALLUP, N.M.
After weeks full of delays and another insurance dispute, attorneys for the Gallup diocese filed its Chapter 11 plan of reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court March 21.
The plan’s monetary provisions will create a fund that is expected to range from over $21 million to nearly $25 million, much of which will go to compensate 57 clergy sex abuse survivors who filed claims in bankruptcy court.
However, the plan’s nonmonetary commitments remain a thorny, unresolved issue. After months of negotiation, those nonmonetary provisions — commitments by the diocese to real institutional change in its response to clergy sex abuse and misconduct — have yet to be filed with the court.
“It is impossible to overstate the tragedy of the Abuse that was inflicted on the children and teenagers of the Diocese,” diocesan attorneys stated in the plan’s disclosure statement. “Such Abuse was perpetrated by priests or others purporting to do the missionary work of the Roman Catholic Church. Instead of fulfilling their missions, such perpetrators inflicted harm and suffering on the children and teenagers of the Diocese.”
The Gallup diocese, which is mostly rural and covers much of western New Mexico and northern Arizona, filed its Chapter 11 petition on Nov. 12, 2013, after it had been named in 13 clergy sex abuse lawsuits and numerous other abuse claims.
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