The settlement plan would require the archdiocese to turn over documents about clergy sexual abuse for public inspection at the University of New Mexico’s Zimmerman Library. Victims’ names and identifying information would be redacted.
Additionally, the plan would establish a separate trust for currently unknown claims.
Approval of the plan depends on whether it gains the approval of two-thirds of abuse survivors who have filed claims.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Thuma would then be asked to approve the plan.
Brad Hall, an Albuquerque attorney who has represented 145 Church abuse survivors in the bankruptcy case, told the Albuquerque Journal that sex abuse survivors could see financial allocations by December at the earliest, four years after Chapter 11 proceedings began. Hall said this represents “the possibility of some closure for long-suffering people who were badly hurt as children.”
The settlement will be funded by the archdiocese, its parishes, other Catholic entities, and the insurance carriers of the archdiocese. Parishes have collectively agreed to contribute “significant amounts” to help fund the settlement plan. In May the archdiocese said that parish participation in the plan will help relieve parishes of financial burdens from any current or future lawsuits.
In an Oct. 7 message on the archdiocese’s website, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s vicar general Father Glenn Jones said the archdiocese met its $65 million fundraising goal by Sept. 30. Its final goal is to collect another $10 million by March 31. He noted that many employees at parishes and archdiocesan offices have lost their jobs to secure funds to pay for the bankruptcy.
“To reach our goal, we’ve had to rely on some pretty hefty loans that we’ll be paying on for several years, but with God’s grace, we will one day start with a clean financial slate,” Jones said, adding: “Child abuse is a cancer in any society or organization; let us always pray and strive to prevent it from happening ever again.”
In 2021, the archdiocese aimed to sell off more than 700 properties to help pay off settlements. Most properties were small vacant lots, fields, or grazing land donated to the archdiocese by families. Last year the archdiocese sold the vacant St. Francis Cathedral School in downtown Santa Fe for $4.75 million.
Reports from the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection say that there are few recent cases of sexual abuse of minors, but many historic allegations are reported each year. The reports indicate that abuse incidents peaked in the 1970s. Since 2014, U.S. dioceses’ costs in responding to sexual abuse claims run into hundreds of millions of dollars.
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