New York, December 9 (ANI) — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York said it is raising at least $300 million as it moves to negotiate a global settlement that would benefit roughly 1,300 people who say they were sexually abused as minors by priests and lay staff, the New York Times reported.
Archdiocese officials said they have agreed with representatives of the accusers on a mediator and have begun raising money by cutting costs and selling assets, including their headquarters and other real estate. Cardinal Timothy Dolan announced the mediation agreement in a letter to about 300,000 Catholics in the archdiocese.
Jeff Anderson, a lawyer who represents 300 claimants, called the archdiocese’s move “a step in the right direction” but cautioned there is no final agreement yet. “There is no agreement at all — what we do have is a proposal for a process by which you go into a mediation,” he said, adding that it was the first time the archdiocese had shown willingness to engage in a process toward resolution.
Cardinal Dolan said both sides had agreed to name Daniel J. Buckley, a retired California judge, as a neutral mediator. Judge Buckley previously helped negotiate a settlement between the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and more than 1,000 people who had accused its personnel of abuse.
Dolan acknowledged the church’s shame over past abuses and asked forgiveness for failures to protect young people. He said the archdiocese had “made a series of very difficult financial decisions” aimed at raising what he hoped would exceed $300 million to fund a settlement.
It was not clear whether $300 million would be the final figure; the amount paid to accusers could be higher or lower. The archdiocese has faced roughly 1,700 sexual abuse claims since New York State enacted the Child Victims Act in 2019 and the Adult Survivors Act in 2022. Those laws created time-limited “look-back windows” allowing civil suits that had previously been barred by statutes of limitations, triggering a flood of claims that led some religious groups to financial distress and helped push six of New York’s eight Catholic dioceses into bankruptcy.
Before those laws, the archdiocese handled some old claims through an independent program set up in 2016; survivors and advocates criticized that approach as an attempt to resolve matters internally rather than through the courts.
The announcement in New York coincided with news that the Archdiocese of New Orleans reached a settlement to pay at least $230 million to hundreds of abuse survivors, a deal approved by a federal bankruptcy judge. Archbishop Gregory Aymond said he hoped the settlement would help survivors find closure while acknowledging ongoing trauma.
The archdiocese’s efforts to resolve claims have been complicated by a long-running dispute with insurer Chubb, which has declined to pay for settlements it says resulted from concealed criminal activity, including child abuse and failures to stop it. A Chubb spokesman said the company paid toward legal defense costs but would not cover settlements tied to knowingly allowed patterns of abuse, arguing insurance should not reward conduct that facilitated criminal behavior.
The Archdiocese of New York, the nation’s second-largest, serves about 2.5 million Catholics across Manhattan, Staten Island, the Bronx and northern suburbs. Its leader, Cardinal Dolan, has a prominent public profile and frequently appears in media; he delivered the opening prayer at President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.
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