Claims against church exceed $530M

By Neil Pang
Guam Daily Post
June 17, 2017

https://www.postguam.com/news/local/claims-against-church-exceed-m/article_04678dd0-5264-11e7-bfe0-834cc1b4929f.html

The Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica is shown Friday, June 16. The Guam Catholic church's assets are dwarfed by the $530 million in claims filed by alleged victims of sex abuse. Photo by David Castro

"There is no reason to believe that survivors will stop coming forward and filing civil lawsuits. ... If history is a prologue to the future, the litigation will end in a combination of three ways after the Archdiocese of Agana publicly produces the personnel files: private settlements, public trials with jury verdicts and or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection." – Patrick J. Wall, attorney and former priest

The last few weeks have seen a momentous development in Guam's clergy sex abuse crisis when the attorney representing more than 80 percent of the alleged victims told a federal court judge he intended to put the cases on hold as he and his clients entered into settlement talks with Hope and Healing Guam.

This brief reprieve was shaken somewhat last week when, during a status conference before U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Joaquin Manibusan, attorney David Lujan told the court he was unable to file his motion for a stay until the Archdiocese of Agana provides him with copies of its insurance policy and audited financial statements stretching back to 2010.

These signals of potential settlement talks come at a time when, since the start of this month, damages being sought by accusers of clergy abuse, as filed in federal and local courts, now exceed half a billion dollars.

As of the latest case filings on June 2, total minimum damages from the 76 pending cases come out to $530 million, and the total does not yet take into account 13 cases pursuing damages in amounts to be proven at trial. With the Archdiocesan Finance Council reporting net book assets at about $132 million, which includes churches and schools under the archdiocese, Guam's Catholic Church now finds itself facing claims that easily surpass its current assets by more than four times.

Some of the cases also name the Boy Scouts of America and certain past troop leaders, from decades ago, as defendants in the claims.

With the Archdiocese of Agana facing such uncertain financial straits, local residents and Catholic faithful may be able to glean some notion of the future from the many Catholic dioceses in the mainland that have faced similar dilemmas.

‘Prologue to the future’

"There is no reason to believe that survivors will stop coming forward and filing civil lawsuits," said attorney Patrick J. Wall, a former priest and an advocate for victims of clergy abuse. "If history is a prologue to the future, the litigation will end in a combination of three ways after the Archdiocese of Agana publicly produces the personnel files: private settlements, public trials with jury verdicts and or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection."

According to bishop-accountability.org, 18 dioceses and religious orders in the U.S. have filed for bankruptcy protection since 2004, with the most recent being the Crosier Fathers and Brothers, a Roman Catholic order with a community in Minnesota that filed just this month.

The order filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and agreed to pay $25.5 million to clergy abuse victims, according to the Star Tribune.

After having 43 sex abuse survivors file lawsuits against the order, the Star Tribune quoted the Crosiers as stating that a "fair and just resolution within (their) limited financial resources" was only possible for plaintiffs through the bankruptcy reorganization plan.

Other settlement plans for dioceses that have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the past decade have been as high as the $198 million agreed upon by the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego to pay 144 alleged abuse victims in 2007, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, and as low as the $21 million the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee said it would pay to about 330 claimants in 2015, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

While claims in Guam are still at the private settlement stage, many of the 18 dioceses and orders that eventually filed for bankruptcy did so only after one or more jury trials ended in favor of the plaintiffs.

Guam's Archdiocesan Finance Council reported a net deficit of $213,420 as of June 30, 2016, leaving bankruptcy protection as an option for the local archdiocese, according to Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Byrnes, who previously told The Guam Daily Post the church was considering all options – including bankruptcy protection.

Bob Klitzkie, a former senator and active Catholic who regularly attends the weekly protests outside the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica, told the Post that from what he understands, he believes that if the church and plaintiffs stick to the Hope and Healing program, the victims will be able to receive compensation and the archdiocese will be able to hang on to some of its physical assets.

According to Post files, Mike Caspino, the director of Hope and Healing Guam, said the Archdiocese of Agana has assured him they will have the money to cover all the settlement deals and that his program has set its eyes toward settling all the cases by this summer.

However, if history is again used as a guide, Hope and Healing Guam settlements will not likely stop additional filing of sex abuse claims.