Pennsylvania's first compensation fund for priest-abuse victims now open

By John Finnerty
Herald
December 02, 2018

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A compensation fund for victims of priest abuse is up-and-running in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and similar funds are in various stages of development in other dioceses across the state.

The Philadelphia fund launched Nov. 13. Victims of priest abuse have until Sept. 30, 2019, to file claims seeking compensation.

The fund is being overseen by Kenneth Feinberg, who had the same responsibility with funds for victims of priest abuse in New York.

The compensation fund came in the wake of a series of grand jury investigations into the church’s decades-long policy of covering up priest abuse. The final report, covering six dioceses, concluded that there had been 300 predator priests who’d molested at least 1,000 victims.

The Allentown, Erie, Harrisburg and Scranton dioceses all announced plans for compensations funds. Officials in Harrisburg and Scranton have indicated that they expect their funds to launch in January. Both dioceses have also announced their funds will be overseen by Feinberg.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown in March pledged to tighten guidelines for dealing with priests accused of sexual abuse; have an outside committee provide oversight for the welfare of children; track computer usage and internet activity within the diocese; and pay for mental health counseling and other support services from professionals the victims or their families choose.

The other dioceses have not provided additional details about their plans or said when victims will be able to begin filing claims.

The funds were unveiled three weeks after the state Legislature ended its 2017-18 legislative session without passing legislation sought by advocates for victims that would have allowed victims of old sex crimes to file lawsuits.

Even so, there have been a small number of lawsuits filed in recent weeks, including two filed by the Philadelphia law firm of Williams Cedar on behalf of alleged victims of priest abuse in the Scranton and Allentown dioceses. The allegations in those cases are recent enough that the lawsuits are still possible under the state’s existing statute of limitations, said attorney Gerald Williams.

Under Pennsylvania’s existing law, victims have until the age of 30 to sue in civil court.

Williams said that if the law is changed to allow older victims to sue, there would be “dozens and dozens” of victims interested in going to court.

In addition to the 1,000 victims linked to predator priests in the grand jury report, there have been almost 1,400 phone tips about possible abuse made to a state hotline, according to Attorney General Josh Shapiro.

Shapiro and Gov. Tom Wolf have supported the proposal of allowing victims to sue over old abuse cases. All the major victims’ advocacy groups also support the idea, Williams said.

A big part of the reason is that many abuse victims want to be able to get church leaders to publicly acknowledge that the crimes took place and that the priests were protected rather than the victims, he said.

“Victims want to be compensated, but they also want the facts brought to light,” Williams said. “These compensation programs will not accomplish this.”

It’s also more appropriate for the compensation to be determined by a jury rather than by a compensation fund overseer hired by the church, Williams said.

In announcing their compensation funds, the Pennsylvania bishops pointed to the New York compensations funds, noting that they’d paid out “$200 million in compensation to more than 1,000 survivors.”

That’s an average of $200,000 per victim. Williams said there’s every reason to believe that there are victims whose abuse was so horrific that juries would opt to award substantially more than that.

The New York Times in September reported that four victims of sex abuse by a church volunteer whose conduct was covered up by church officials had reached a $27.5 million settlement after suing the Brooklyn Diocese.

The website Bishopaccountability.org, tracks church lawsuits. The largest award for a Pennsylvania victim identified by the web site was from a 1994 Blair County jury award of $2.57 million to the victim of Fr. Francis Luddy of Altoona. That amount included more than $800,000 in interest the church was ordered to pay for appealing the case for years, Richard Serbin, the attorney for the victim told The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat in September.

Williams said that the one clear advantage that the church’s compensation funds offers victims is that they stand to get paid more quickly than if they file a lawsuit.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia compensation fund has announced that “eligible claims will be paid within two weeks” after the fund oversees set a compensation amount and the victim provides a release promising now to file any future lawsuit.