OAKLAND (CA)
The Mercury News [San Jose CA]
March 22, 2026
By Jakob Rodgers
Disputes over amount, insurance liability amount could add $90 million or more to final payouts
The dueling settlement offers from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland and the hundreds of East Bay parishioners who say they were raped and abused by its priests are still separated by at least $90 million — and possibly tens of millions more, court records show.
The chasm shows the work that remains to resolve nearly 350 lawsuits from people who say they were molested as children by church leaders and ordered by their alleged abusers to keep quiet. It comes just weeks ahead of a trial that is among a handful being moved forward as tests, which could provide new clarity on the diocese’s potential liability.
A committee representing those abuse victims recently filed court papers demanding $314.1 million over the course of three and a half years from the diocese and a related corporation overseeing its schools.
That compares with an offer of $180 million from the diocese and that corporation, made in late February, court records show. The offer reflects a small concession from the church to the victims, who have asked for more money to be paid up front by the diocese, which had originally offered a five-year timeline.
The diocese’s proposed payout also includes an additional $44.3 million from its insurers, upping the diocese’s total offer to $224.3 million. However, the committee representing abuse victims has previously taken issue with any insurance money being a part of any settlement offer from the diocese, as any such payout negotiated separately with the insurance companies could be significantly more than what the diocese’s accord alone could offer.
Dan McNevin, a state treasurer with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called the church’s offer “way too low,” and suggested the diocese sell off more real estate to help fund a larger payout.
“The bishop of Oakland has been low-balling this the whole time,” McNevin said. “He’s got to be less greedy — sell the land and fund this thing. It’s not that hard.”
The diocese did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Money isn’t the only sticking point holding up a potential settlement with the Oakland diocese.
One key disagreement rests in creation of a compliance monitor position, which would work to ensure that the diocese is following policies aimed at keeping children safe, such as improved training, background checks, the creation of a compliance advisory board of volunteers to help oversee the reforms.The committee of abuse victims wants that compliance monitor in place for no less than 10 years, while the diocese wants any such term to be generally capped at five years.
The dueling proposals come about a month ahead of a so-called bellwether trial — essentially, a legal test case offering new insight into how victims’ claims could fare in court.
The case was among the 350 or so lawsuits that were effectively paused in May 2023, when the diocese filed for bankruptcy. Seeing the lagging progress of settlement talks between the diocese and the abuse victims, a federal bankruptcy judge allowed six of those cases to finally proceed to trial. The goal: Allow each side to gauge juries’ reactions, as a means to hasten settlement talks for the remaining cases.
The first such case is expected to open on April 13, when an Alameda County jury will hear claims about how Stephen Kiesle, a former priest, groomed and repeatedly sexually assaulted one parishioner while that person was 10 and 11 years old. The assaults were alleged to have happened in 1975 and 1976, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in late December 2019.
The case was expected to go to trial March 16, but a judge pushed it off to mid-April, allowing more time for each side to reach a last-minute accord.
Kiesle has faced numerous other abuse allegations.
The former priest pleaded no contest in 1978 to a misdemeanor charge of lewd conduct for tying up and sexually abusing two boys at Our Lady of the Rosary in Union City. Yet despite his conviction — and the three-year sentence of probation that followed — he remained a part of the church during the 1970s and 80s.
He asked to be removed as a priest in the early 1980s, and Oakland diocese leaders also sought to defrock him. However, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — who later became Pope Benedict XVI — delayed a decision on his removal in 1985, citing “the good of the Universal Church.”
Kiesle was finally defrocked in 1987. Even so, he continued to work with the church, according to earlier reports from this news organization.
In 2004, Kiesle was sentenced to six years in prison amid a new wave of molestation charges, this time related to the abuse of a child at his Truckee vacation home in 1995. After his release for a subsequent parole violation in 2010, Kiesle was forced to register as a sex offender and moved into the gated Contra Costa census-designated place of Rossmoor.
Kiesle is currently serving a six-year, eight-month prison sentence for vehicular manslaughter. Authorities say he jumped a curb while driving drunk in April 2022, killing a 64-year-old man who had been walking home with his wife from a trivia event.
McNevin voiced confidence this week that a verdict in Kiesle’s case could improve the abuse victims’ negotiation position. A sizeable verdict, he said, could prompt other victims to demand more money from the diocese, and ask “Why should I get less?”
“If they don’t bring an offer up, then I think they have to let this thing go to trial,” McNevin said. “At that point, all bets are off.”
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com.