[Opinion] Screwed twice over: victims of abusive NJ Catholic clerics

NEW JERSEY
Patheos (blog)

October 3, 2020

By Barry Duke

WHEN it was announced last Thursday that Roman Catholic Diocese of Camden in New Jersey, headed by Bishop Dennis J Sullivan, above, was filing for bankruptcy, people immediately began asking where this will leave victims of clerical abuse who were in line for compensation.

Well, it looks as if their claims could either go unresolved, or fall well below expectations.

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, more than two-thirds of victims who signed up to participate in a fund set up by the Diocese to compensate victims have been left with “diminished expectations of seeing a payout.”

Last year 141 people who were encouraged by Sullivan to come forward and recount their experiences of abuse for fund administrators must now join a line of other creditors – including banks, independent contractors – to jostle in court over a limited pot of money that will be divided up by the bankruptcy court.

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.