The Archdiocese of San Francisco will offer abuse victims nearly $400 million as part of a broad settlement of the substantial number of sex abuse lawsuits brought against it.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said on June 29 that the proposed $395 million settlement would “resolve all lawsuits related to child sexual abuse” brought against the archdiocese under California’s expanded statute of limitations.
Archbishop Cordileone said the archdiocese in the past has helped parishes, schools, and other archdiocesan entities absorb the cost of sex-abuse lawsuits, but he said the “current environment” of abuse lawsuits is “much more challenging.”
Schools and parishes “will need to contribute funds” to the settlement both in order to ensure their own legal safeguards and to “share in the work of making amends for the harm of the past,” he said.
The archdiocese announced it was filing for bankruptcy in August 2023 in response to more than 500 civil lawsuits filed against it.
The voluminous lawsuits were brought against the archdiocese under California’s 2019 Assembly Bill 218, which significantly expanded the statute of limitations in the state regarding civil sex abuse lawsuits.
In a separate release, the archdiocese said it would seek to “preserve the vital ministries of Catholic education and parish life” even as it moves to pay out the major nine-figure settlement.
The archdiocese has “no current plans to close schools or parishes to reach the proposed settlement,” it said.
The settlement has yet to be finalized in federal bankruptcy court. The archdiocese said that all litigation involving the lawsuits has been paused while the parties “work in good faith on the details of a consensual Chapter 11 plan of reorganization.”
The settlement represents one of the larger abuse payout amounts in U.S. Catholic history, though a few others have been considerably larger. In October 2024 the Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced an $880 million clergy abuse settlement, while the New York Archdiocese in May said it would pay out $800 million to abuse victims….
From the National Catholic Register
Money that could and should have been used to support the Church’s parish ministry, so desperately needed today as the Church declines and implodes and offertories shrink, will be paid to victims because of homosexuals in the priesthood.
We’re now living in the sunk-cost fallacy, wherein the faithful in parishes and schools will be squeezed fiscally dry to cover the sins of homosexual clergy.
The gay bishophood and their appointees had better take note or there won’t be one person left in the pews.
Our Church is far too evil, deceitful and dangerous. 530÷ innocent souls’ entire lives horrifically destroyed, by filthy criminals in Holy Orders– in the SF Archdiocese— plus, millions more, locally and worldwide. The Devil hijacked it, long ago…but God will have the last word. Divine Justice knows all, and sees all.
With more than 85 percent of the abuse cases involving homosexual priests, why do we still tolerate violating Church teaching and admitting men with deep-seated homosexual tendencies into our seminaries?
In dioceses like San Jose and others, when will the strangle-hold of the lavender mafia be broken?
It seems more recently ordained priests in SF, ordained by Archbishop Cordileone, are men who are not perverted.
Chastity is for all; straight, gay, clergy, lay, single and married. The voices of Cardinals Cupich and McElroy and Rev. James Martin and some others are misleading, dangerous and not compassionate. Love leads people to heaven, not hell. Pray for all victims of abuse. And, it’s abusive to not lovingly speak the truth to those dealing with habits of sexual sin. Lord, have mercy on us all!
And they say the S.S.P.X. is the problem give me a break so sick and tired of this garbage.
There’s no place for “schismatics” in the Church …. pedophiles might start to feel cramped.
The SSPX has also had clergy sex abusers.
R.A.: The SSPX is a BIG PART of the problem. Just watch some videos produced by Christine Niles. You have promoted her videos several times.
Who is Christine Niles? I never heard of her. I always get emails, regular mail, and free videos and etc. from the SSPX at their American seminary, now located in Virginia. Long ago, I knew priests and prelates who got Catholic Bibles, religious books, catechisms (before the new one of 1992– English version, 1994– with Vatican II updates), 1962 missals (for approved local Traditional Latin Masses), ladies’ mantillas, statues of saints, holy cards, 1st Communion supplies, and etc. — these items and more, were bought from their bookstore, at big Church discount prices. Many local Catholic bookstores became defunct after Vatican II. Nowhere to even find a Family Bible, catechism, or cards and gifts for Baptisms, 1st Communions, and Confirmations. Must get Catholic items at good bargain prices, wherever you can.
Ms. Niles used to work for the lapsed and disgraced Catholic homosexual Michael Voris on his rabidly “gotcha” uber-traditionalist Church Militant website and Catholic media enterprise that attacked Church prelates who weren’t sufficiently orthodox in Mr. Voris’s opinion. Ms. Niles frequently wrote essays for the website about Church news and participated in panel discussions with Mr. Voris and gave news reports for their media distribution outlets. Mr. Voris resigned from Church Militant in 2023 under salacious circumstances, and Church Militant ceased operations in 2024 after receiving a libel judgment against it.
After Ms. Niles’s eyes were opened about Mr. Voris, she left Church Militant and started her own Catholic journalism enterprise: Stella Maris Media.
Also factor in the legal costs for this , at 400 million I would add 100 million plus, that we the laity will pay for again as the hierarchy continues to treat us with contempt.
I am a Catholic lay person and native Californian. I know all too well abuse of women and children is systemic to the culture in America by immorality of men. I and my children have been victimized but not by anyone ordained to the Church. Antidote to immorality is morality. Law suits for compensation for abuse creates value for abuse. Catholics were abused and deeply challenged by their faith which they forfeited for compensation. It is not for the secular to encroach upon the Church its low standards of justice as it does not encroach upon billion dollar institutions for pornography and sex trafficking. As the culture deteriorates, victims become predators and the system collapses in immorality. This is the end of law suits against abuse of women and children. Its stoic and entitled encroachment upon the Church will not be the attribute which revives the Church after bankruptcy but rather give way for the mercy it will find there. There was a time when this truth was politically incorrect, but now when all is said and done, it can be said it was always about God and the salvation of the soul protected against immorality of man, not creating value by it.