MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Thursday, Nov. 5, 2015
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those abused by Priests (314 566 9790, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)
We fear that Duluth’s bishop will appeal an $8 million jury verdict or use it to justify seeking bankruptcy protection. We hope he’ll do neither. Both are irresponsible.
A Pennsylvania bishop once appealed a jury verdict for an abuse victim for more than a dozen years. Instead of paying the original $1.5 million, the diocese ultimately paid $2.569 million
More recently, an Illinois bishop appealed a $5 million jury verdict for years, and ended up paying $ 6.3 million (because of the interest that had accrued).
Appeals like this are mean-spirited and often financially dumb. They delay long-deserved healing for everyone involved.
We also fear that Bishop Paul Sirba will also now claim “We must seek Chapter 11 protection.” We hope this doesn’t happen.
Bishops declare bankruptcy for selfish reasons, not financial ones. They want to keep their reputations, not their assets. They want to keep their cover ups covered up. Bankruptcy brings an abrupt halt to disclosures about which clerics committed and concealed child sex crimes.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.