The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has agreed to a $210 million settlement with 450 victims of clergy sexual abuse as part of its plan for bankruptcy reorganization, an attorney said Thursday, making it the second-largest U.S. payout in the priest sex abuse scandal.
Victims’ attorney Jeff Anderson said the settlement was reached with the survivors and the archdiocese and includes accountability measures. The money, a total of $210,290,724, will go into a pot to pay survivors, with the amount for each survivor to be determined.
Anderson said a formal reorganization plan will now be submitted to the judge for approval, and then it will be sent to the survivors for a vote. Anderson expected they will readily approve it.
Archbishop Bernard Hebda said he was grateful to victims who came forward.
“I recognize that the abuse stole so much from you, your childhood, your innocence, your ability to trust … your faith,” he said, adding that he hopes the settlement brings closure to those who were harmed. “We’ve been working with them very carefully to try to formulate this in a way that benefits them to the maximum.”
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According to the website BishopAccountability.org, which tracks clergy sex abuse cases, this is the largest total payout among the Roman Catholic archdioceses and dioceses that have filed for bankruptcy protection. But the largest total payout of any kind came in 2007, when the Archdiocese of Los Angeles settled clergy sex abuse cases with 508 victims for $660 million.
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Thomas Abood, chairman of the Archdiocesan Finance Council and Reorganization Task Force, said the settlement will be outlined in greater detail when it is filed in court. But he said most of the funding, roughly $170 million, will come from insurance carriers. The rest will come from parishes, the archdiocese, a pension fund and real estate sales.
“We will do everything we can to expedite it,” Abood said, adding that he hopes the process can be completed in the next few months. “We have gone everywhere we could to raise money for this settlement.”
The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in 2015, two years after the Minnesota Legislature opened a three-year window that allowed people who had been sexually abused in the past to sue for damages. That resulted in hundreds of claims being filed against the archdiocese.
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The bankruptcy case proceeded slowly as attorneys argued over how much money the archdiocese should have to pay. The archdiocese reported its net worth was $45 million. But attorneys for the victims maintained that the archdiocese’s true worth was over $1 billion, counting assets of its 187 Roman Catholic parishes, as well as schools, cemeteries and other church-related entities. Victims’ attorneys said those assets should be used to make more money available for victims.
Last month, a federal appeals court affirmed a 2016 decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel that the parishes and other non-profit entities were independent, meaning their assets could not be tapped in the bankruptcy case. Last December, Kressel rejected competing reorganization plans filed by the archdiocese and a creditors’ committee and ordered both sides back into mediation.
At least 15 Catholic dioceses or archdioceses across the country have filed for bankruptcy, including three in Minnesota, as they sought to protect themselves from growing claims of sexual abuse by clergy members. A fourth Minnesota diocese, St. Cloud, announced its intention to file in February but didn’t immediately set a date.
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