Philadelphia archdiocese sets up victims’ reparation fund

By Matthew Gambino
Catholic News Service
November 12, 2018

https://www.catholic-sf.org/news/philadelphia-archdiocese-sets-up-victims-reparation-fund

Acting on his promise to find new ways to support survivors of clerical sexual abuse, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput announced Nov. 8 that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is creating a new reparations program open to anyone abused by clergy in the archdiocese.
 
Philadelphia’s archbishop made the announcement in his column on CatholicPhilly.com, explaining the archdiocese will fund the program and “pay the amounts that independent claims administrators deem appropriate.”
 
The Independent Reconciliation and Reparations Program seeks to compensate all victims but especially those whose claims are currently barred from civil lawsuits under Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations.
 
An effort in the state Legislature to allow a limited-time window on the statute for retroactive lawsuits against the Catholic dioceses in the state failed to come up for a vote in the Senate in October. The issue is thought to be dead because the current legislative session ends in mid-November.
 
The new program will accept claims from abuse survivors and offer them “a secure and respectful means to resolve their claims and receive compensation without the ambiguity, conflict, stress and expense of litigation,” said a news release from the archdiocese.
 
The program is an initiative of the Philadelphia archdiocese alone and is not joined by the other seven Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania. The bishops of those dioceses pledged with Archbishop Chaput in September to support establishing just such a program; the other dioceses have since announced their own programs.
 
While the Philadelphia Archdiocese indicated it would provide “substantial fiscal commitment” for the program that would impact church ministries “in a serious way,” no details on the monetary amount of the fund or how the archdiocese would come up with the funding were revealed.
 
In the last three years, the finances of the archdiocese have returned close to breaking even after reaching financially catastrophic levels of deficit spending – more than $17 million annually – and $354 million in underfunded obligations, by 2012. Audited financial statements for the archdiocese typically are made public each November for the previous fiscal year.
 
The archdiocese’s statement on the compensation program said funding will be provided by “existing archdiocesan assets,” without identifying them.
 
The archdiocese expects the money needed for claims will require more than the initial unspecified funding level, so “additional program funding will need to come from borrowing and the sale of archdiocesan properties” that have not yet been determined, according to the statement.
 
Whatever the funding source may be, the program will not tap into money given to the archdiocesan Catholic Charities Appeal, the St. Charles Borromeo Seminary Appeal, other donor-designated funds or donations made to parishes, schools and ministries.
 
For a comparison of the potential scope of the compensation program, the Archdiocese of New York reported its independent program has paid out $40 million as of late 2017 to 189 survivors of clergy sexual abuse from more than 200 initial claims since the program was launched in 2016.
 
Philadelphia’s Independent Reconciliation and Reparations Program, or IRRP, will be led by an oversight committee consisting of former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, as chair; Kelley Hodge, a former interim district attorney of Philadelphia who served as the city’s chief prosecutor between the terms of former DA Seth Williams and current DA Larry Krasner; and retired Chief Judge Lawrence Stengel, who formerly led the federal court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
 
The committee will monitor the claims process, which will be facilitated by professionals experienced with running compensation funds.