BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News [Buffalo NY]
November 8, 2026
By Jay Tokasz
After nearly 7 years, sex abuse claimants approve $327M Buffalo Diocese settlement
Kevin Brun had mixed feelings when he recently returned his ballot approving the Buffalo Diocese’s $327 million plan to settle nearly 900 sex abuse claims and exit Chapter 11 proceedings that have dragged on for nearly seven years.
A decades-long diocese coverup of claims of priests and other employees molesting children began unraveling in 2018 with media reports of victims going public with their accounts of abuse, followed by the filing of hundreds of Child Victims Act lawsuits naming the diocese and parishes as defendants.
The Buffalo Diocese – like many other dioceses that had faced similar liability even earlier – filed for bankruptcy in response to the lawsuits, with church leaders saying it would be the fairest way to address all the claims.
Brun said his primary concern in the bankruptcy process was making sure Catholic leaders in Western New York changed the way they operated when it comes to investigating reports of abuse and hiding information from law enforcement and parishioners.
And that’s why Brun said he struggled so much with his vote. He hasn’t seen evidence the diocese has changed. But he also wants the bankruptcy case to end, primarily for fellow abuse survivors who may be counting on settlement money to help with their healing.
“I don’t want to say they broke me,” Brun said. “But I know dozens and dozens of survivors who are depending on a financial settlement and have been waiting for decades.”
“I’ve always been about what’s best for survivors as a whole,” he added. “And I believe that signing that ballot as affirmative was what’s best for survivors at this point in time after seven years.”
[Photo caption: “I’ve given up on hoping for change in the diocese,” says Kevin Brun, a survivor of sex abuse by a priest in the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo who wears a wristband in memory of his son Patrick, who died by suicide at 19 after finding an account of Brun’s abuse. Libby March, Buffalo News]
The settlement plan required at least two-thirds of claimants who submitted ballots to say yes for it to proceed to a final stage, whereby a federal judge ultimately determines whether the plan should be confirmed.