San Francisco Archdiocese declares bankruptcy amid hundreds of lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse

Source: Associated Press

San Francisco Archdiocese declares bankruptcy amid hundreds of lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse

BY OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ
Updated 5:59 PM EDT, August 21, 2023

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco’s Roman Catholic archdiocese filed for bankruptcy Monday, saying the filing is necessary to manage more than 500 lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by church officials.

The Chapter 11 protection filing will stop all legal actions against the archdiocese and thus allow it to develop a settlement plan with abuse survivors, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said in a statement.

“The unfortunate reality is that the Archdiocese has neither the financial means nor the practical ability to litigate all of these abuse claims individually, and therefore, after much consideration, concluded that the bankruptcy process was the best solution for providing fair and equitable compensation to the innocent survivors who have been harmed,” Cordileone said.

The San Francisco Archdiocese is the third Bay Area diocese to file for bankruptcy after facing hundreds of lawsuits brought under a California law approved in 2019 that allowed decades-old claims to be filed by Dec. 31, 2022. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland filed for bankruptcy in May. The Diocese of Santa Rosa became the first one in California to file for Chapter 11 protection, in March.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/san-francisco-archdiocese-bankruptcy-sexual-abuse-36d114986ca32f9644f08b1fa87b9bc3