BURLINGTON (VT)
VTDigger [Montpelier VT]
October 1, 2025
By Kevin O'Connor
Six months after a deadline for filing claims, a judge will allow a new petitioner — and potentially others — to seek compensation from the state’s largest religious denomination.
BURLINGTON — A year after filing for bankruptcy under the weight of 31 unresolved clergy misconduct lawsuits, the Vermont Roman Catholic Diocese is seeing its number of accusers rise nearly fourfold.
The state’s largest religious denomination had thought the pool of current abuse claimants had plateaued at 118 upon an April deadline for people to seek compensation. But at a hearing Tuesday, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Heather Cooper endorsed a request by a new petitioner identified only as “John Doe” to add his name — a move that multiple lawyers involved said could potentially open the door for others.
After the diocese asked to reorganize its depleting finances on Sept. 30, 2024, the court said any claimants wanting to join the Chapter 11 case had to do so by April 4 — a date advertised in select national and state newspapers and local church bulletins.
But Doe, a former Vermonter now living in Florida, didn’t see the notice, he said in newly submitted court papers.
Doe was placed within weeks of his 1947 birth at the diocese’s former St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington, where he “suffered from repeated instances of abuse” during his decade there, his statement said.
Moving south in 1995, Doe didn’t know about the church’s bankruptcy case until a recent visit to Chittenden County this summer, when he learned of the filing as well as a new Burlington “memorial healing space” for the more than 13,000 children who lived at the orphanage from its opening in 1854 to its closing in 1974.
“For the first time in his life, Doe decided to acknowledge his history at the orphanage,” his lawyer, Celeste Laramie of the Burlington firm Gravel & Shea, wrote in court papers.
According to federal law, a bankruptcy court can decide whether to extend the filing deadline in such circumstances. But before the judge could rule on Doe’s request, attorneys for both the church and claimants agreed to add him to their current mediation topics — a move the judge endorsed on Tuesday without elaborating.
The updated total of 119 current claimants includes the initial 31 whose unresolved lawsuits spurred the bankruptcy filing. The new figure is almost double that of an earlier 67 accusers who settled abuse cases before the diocese sought Chapter 11 protection.
A year ago, the church said its assets had been reduced by half, to about $35 million. Since then, it has spent about $1.5 million — almost 5% of its remaining money — on legal bills, court records show.
Although the bankruptcy court has no authority to rule on any of the abuse allegations, which date as far back as 1950, it has allowed claimants to offer non-evidentiary “survivor statements.” On Tuesday, seven speakers told the judge of suffering depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, disassociation and problems with intimacy, sleeping and alcohol and drug use.
“Up to a year ago, I had planned to take my shame and humiliation to the grave,” said a Montpelier man identified as “speaker 4.”
Then he and others came forward upon the church’s bankruptcy filing.
“If the priests had been held accountable,” another speaker said, “we could have avoided all the pain.”