The Diocese of Rockville Centre’s $323 million settlement in the bankruptcy case connected to a flood of lawsuits concerning child sexual abuse in its parishes stretching as far back as the 1950s was approved yesterday by Judge Martin Glenn of the Southern District of New York Bankruptcy Court.
In the settlement plan, the diocese, parishes, and all related entities will pay $234.8 million, insurance companies will contribute a little over $85 million, and the Counsel for Creditors Committee will add $3 million.
The diocese oversees all of the Catholic parishes in Suffolk and Nassau Counties. It declared bankruptcy in 2020 in the face of hundreds of lawsuits brought under New York’s Child Victims Act, which temporarily removed the statute of limitations to file child sex abuse claims.
If the plan is approved a part of it will include all parishes in the diocese entering into an “abbreviated Chapter 11 . . . in order to secure a release from liability for the parishes,” according to a press release from the diocese earlier this fall. The diocese expects that the Chapter 11 filings will be resolved within “48 hours” and “will not interfere with parish work and ministries.” No parishes are expected to close.
In 2021, as part of its bankruptcy court filings, the diocese released a list of over 100 credibly accused clergy members who served in parishes across the Island. Eleven had served on the South Fork from the late 1950s to as recently as the year 2000 at posts including Most Holy Trinity in East Hampton, St. Andrew in Sag Harbor, St. Therese of Lisieux in Montauk, Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in Southampton, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary in Bridgehampton, and the Villa Maria convent in Water Mill.
In a press release announcing the preliminary settlement in September, the diocese said that its “goal has always been the equitable compensation of survivors of abuse while allowing the Church to continue her essential mission.”
“For the sake of survivors and the Church’s mission on Long Island, we pray that the plan is approved and completed as quickly as possible,” the Rev. Eric Fasano, vicar general of the diocese, said in an email last month.
“However you slice it, it’s a massive amount of money and it’s a huge step for any diocese to take,” said Mark Williams, a former East Hamptoner whose book, “Torrent of Grace: A Catholic Survivor’s Healing Journey After Catholic Abuse,” will be published next month by Orbis. The book chronicles Mr. Williams’s own journey of confronting trauma and coming out on the other side. A member of East Hampton High School’s class of 1974, he now lives in Far Side, N.J. He did not pursue a lawsuit against the Church or seek financial compensation, and he eventually found his way back to the Catholic Church: He serves as a special adviser in the Archdiocese of Newark.
Along with justice for the victims, what he feels is needed is a path forward for the church where transparency and safety are institutional and prolonged legal battles become part of the past.
“It has been necessary,” he said, “but I think what has been missing, and what’s the other side of the coin for very good priests and bishops and people who love the Church, is there has been an absence of a path for healing.”
