St. John’s arch­diocese gran­ted more time by courts

ST. JOHN'S (CANADA)
The Telegram [St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada]

January 2, 2026

By Tara Bradbury, The Telegram

Talks con­tinue on who else should pay abuse vic­tims

The St. John’s Roman Cath­olic arch­diocese has received another exten­sion of its cred­itor pro­tec­tion, as law­yers for clergy abuse sur­viv­ors meet with other organ­iz­a­tions who may also be liable for the his­toric harms.

The Roman Cath­olic Epis­copal Cor­por­a­tion of St. John’s (RCECSJ) has been in cred­itor pro­tec­tion since Decem­ber 2021 as it sells its assets to com­pensate more than 300 sur­viv­ors of his­toric abuse by Chris­tian Broth­ers at Mount Cashel orphan­age and other loc­a­tions.

The courts found the arch­diocese vicari­ously liable for the abuse, and an inde­pend­ent claims adju­dic­a­tion awar­ded the vic­tims $121.3 mil­lion.

So far, the claimants have received just over 30 per cent of what they’re due, and the arch­diocese con­tin­ues its efforts to col­lect the funds needed. It reques­ted and was gran­ted a 60-day exten­sion of its pro­tec­tion against cred­it­ors in the Supreme Court of New­found­land and Lab­rador this week.

Accord­ing to court-appoin­ted mon­itor Ernst and Young, the RCECSJ — which expects to have about $4.4 mil­lion left at the end of

Feb­ru­ary 2026 — needs more time to final­ize the sale of some prop­er­ties and con­tinue its efforts to sell oth­ers. As well, it’s work­ing with the claimants’ law­yers on the details of a coun­selling fund.

The law­yers are in the midst of dis­cus­sions with other poten­tially liable parties, the mon­itor indic­ated.

“Rep­res­ent­at­ive coun­sel has advised the mon­itor that its con­fid­en­tial dis­cus­sions con­cern­ing future poten­tial recov­er­ies for abuse claimants have con­tin­ued to pro­gress and that the con­tinu­ation of these (cred­itor pro­tec­tion pro­ceed­ings) will facil­it­ate their efforts,” Ernst and Young senior vice-pres­id­ent George Kins­man wrote in his most recent report.

He didn’t name the other parties, but it’s expec­ted they may include the New­found­land and Lab­rador gov­ern­ment, and vari­ous other Roman Cath­olic organ­iz­a­tions with which some of the abusers were affil­i­ated.

The arch­diocese’s exten­sion request was also based on its appeal of a court rul­ing over its insur­ance cov­er­age.

The RCECSJ had hoped Guard­ian Insur­ance Com­pany of Canada would cover some of the set­tle­ment, but the court ruled a year ago that the insur­ance policy was void due to the arch­diocese’s fail­ure to dis­close sexual abuse claims to the com­pany.

That appeal was expec­ted to be heard later in Decem­ber.