NEW YORK (NY)
New York Daily News
October 24, 2026
By Nicholas Williams
The Catholic Archdiocese of New York on Saturday reached a settlement with more than 1,300 accusers who said they were sexually abused by clergy members and lay leaders, with The New York Times reporting the settlement amount is $800 million.
In an email obtained by the Daily News, New York Archbishop Ronald Hicks informed priests that, while the deal won’t be finalized until the week of Nov. 6, an understanding has been reached with all the plaintiffs and their attorneys.
“We have, in fact, reached an understanding with all of the plaintiffs and their attorneys,” Hicks wrote. “We are on the verge of being able to, please God, bring some measure of healing and reconciliation to all victim-survivors. This agreement will also allow the archdiocese to turn its full attention once again to its mission of preaching the Gospel, healing the sick, caring for the poor and needy, welcoming the stranger, and educating our children.”
Under the settlement, each plaintiff will have the option to receive a payment of at least $250,000 or a potentially larger payout after a review of the extent of the abuse each plaintiff has claimed, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, the Times said.
The settlement comes after years of back and forth with lawyers advising the plaintiffs that if they did not accept the Church’s proposed deal, the archdiocese would most likely declare bankruptcy, reducing the size of any eventual payout and extending the length of litigation.
“Tonight, we were able to finalize the settlement with the Archdiocese,” Trusha Goffe, an attorney with Jeff Anderson & Associates, wrote Friday in an email to the firm’s nearly 300 clients who say they were abused, according to the Times. “All of the survivors agreed to the revised deal. This means that the settlement you agreed to will move forward.”
The New York Archdiocese includes Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island, plus seven Hudson Valley counties, including Westchester and Rockland. Brooklyn and Queens are in the separate Diocese of Brooklyn.
The decades-long sexual abuse saga had threatened to bankrupt America’s most prominent archdiocese. The New York Archdiocese’s payout, though among the largest, won’t be the biggest clergy abuse settlement reached in the U.S. It’s the latest such staggering settlement, with the Church’s massive financial reparations starting in the late 1990s, before going on to snowball and continuing up to the present day.
In 2024, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay $880 million to more than 1,000 victims of clergy sexual abuse dating back decades.
The archdiocese, which covers Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, had previously paid more than $740 million to victims, making the total payout more than $1.5 billion.
The New Orleans Archdiocese agreed to pay at least $230 million to hundreds of survivors of clergy sexual abuse under a settlement approved by a federal judge last December.
The settlement followed years of negotiations and included policies intended to prevent abuse from happening in the future. The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in 2020 to avoid handling each of the more than 500 abuse claims separately.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego agreed in 2007 to pay $198 million to settle more than 140 clergy sexual abuse claims.
The diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2024 in response to roughly 400 additional lawsuits alleging priests and others sexually abused children decades earlier. The lawsuits were filed after California lifted a statute of limitations on childhood sexual abuse claims in 2019.
The Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, a Jesuit order, agreed in 2011 to pay $166 million to more than 450 Native Americans and Alaska Natives who were abused at the order’s schools across the northwestern U.S. The order also agreed to pay $50 million to settle another 110 sex abuse claims in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 2007.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, Calif., reached a $100 million settlement with about 90 victims of sex abuse in 2004. Three years later, the diocese agreed to pay another $7 million to settle four additional sexual abuse lawsuits.
The archdiocese in Portland, Oregon, was the first Catholic diocese to file for bankruptcy in 2004 over sex abuse allegations after settling more than 100 cases. By the time the bankruptcy was complete three years later, the archdiocese had settled more than 300 claims and paid out nearly $90 million in claims and attorney fees. In 2019, the archdiocese agreed to pay nearly $4 million to settle eight additional claims of clergy sexual abuse.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston agreed to pay $85 million to settle more than 500 clergy sex abuse lawsuits in 2003. The scope of the sex abuse crisis in Boston set off reports around the United States and the world of widespread abuse by priests and the Church’s efforts to hide it.
In 2006, the Diocese of Covington, in Kentucky, paid more than $81 million to more than 200 sexual abuse victims in a court settlement. A report from the diocese released in 2020 found that 59 Catholic priests and 31 others associated with the church had sexually abused children since the 1950s.
As of 2022, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia has paid more than $78 million to settle 438 claims of clergy sexual abuse, according to a report. In 2023, the archdiocese agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle an additional sex abuse case.
The Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, which serves Catholics in Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland, agreed in 2011 to pay $77 million to roughly 150 clergy sex abuse victims.
The Diocese of Oakland reached a $56 million settlement with 56 survivors of sexual abuse in 2005. The diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2023 after more than 300 child sex abuse lawsuits were filed after a new state law temporarily extended the statute of limitations for child sex abuse litigation.