Enrollment period for Harrisburg diocese clergy sex abuse victims compensation program closes

By Ivey Dejesus
Patroit News
May 14, 2019

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The enrollment period for the victims compensation fund of the Diocese of Harrisburg closed on Monday. Photo by Jeff Swensen

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg on Tuesday confirmed that its Survivor Compensation Program enrollment period ended Monday even as it hinted at a possible extension.

In a written statement, the diocese indicated that survivors who had not enrolled to participate “should await further announcements” from the diocese.

“The Survivor Compensation Program is a major component in our ongoing efforts to support survivors of clergy child sexual abuse,” Bishop Ronald Gainer said in a written statement. “We have just completed an important phase of this program.”

The fund administrator - Commonwealth Mediation & Conciliation - has indicated that “many survivors” had applied to participate in the program, he said.

Gainer said the diocese would release a final report on the number of individuals who filed to participate in the program once the settlement period has concluded.

The Survivor Compensation Program is poised to pay out millions of dollars to victims of clergy sex abuse. The diocese has not disclosed a specific dollar amount for the fund.

Private settlements to individual victims will be determined by the fund administrator. Settlement offers will be made on or before June 28.

The Diocese of Harrisburg is one of six dioceses across the state, as well as the Philadelphia Archdiocese, to have established compensation funds for victims amid escalating clergy sex abuse crisis.

The dioceses rolled out the programs in the wake of a scathing grand jury report released in August 2018 detailing the horrific and widespread sexual abuse of thousands of minors over seven decades by hundreds of priests in six Catholic dioceses, including Harrisburg. Nearly identical patterns of abuse were previously found several years ago in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia by a local grand jury investigation.

The compensation program includes settlements for abuse by diocesan priests, deacons and seminarians, as well as priests of other dioceses and religious order priests who had faculties in the Diocese of Harrisburg at the time of the abuse.