The Diocese of Brooklyn said on Thursday that it had agreed to enter into mediation with more than 1,000 people who have said they were sexually abused as minors by priests or church lay staff members. The diocese will also set aside a fund worth hundreds of millions of dollars to settle victims’ claims.
In a letter announcing the mediation, Bishop Robert Brennan of Brooklyn said that the claims were part of “the church’s shameful history of sexual abuse of our young people.”
“The impact of sexual abuse is devastating,” he wrote. “As your bishop, I again offer my deepest apologies to all the victim survivors.”
The letter names as mediators Daniel J. Buckley, a retired judge from California, and Paul A. Finn, a lawyer based in Boston with decades of experience settling sex abuse cases. Judge Buckley was also named in December as a mediator in a similar dispute between the Archdiocese of New York and more than 1,300 people who said they had been sexually abused.
The Brooklyn Diocese, which also includes Queens, faces more than 1,100 lawsuits. Many were filed in the wake of the state’s Child Victims Act, which took effect in 2019 and temporarily suspended the statute of limitations on claims of rape and sexual assault. Some of the abuse allegations in the diocese date to the early 1950s.
The child victims law, which was followed by the Adult Survivors Act in 2022, has enabled thousands of people to file lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Church. In part to resolve those claims, six of the eight Catholic dioceses in New York State have declared bankruptcy in recent years.
The total cost of settling the cases in the Brooklyn Diocese has not been negotiated, said Robert Giuffra Jr., a lawyer for the diocese. Rather than declare bankruptcy, he said, the diocese will attempt to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the settlements primarily by selling real estate owned by the church. Donations to the diocese and its parishes will not be used to pay victims, Mr. Giuffra said.
Adriana Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the diocese, said that mediation would speed up the settlements. “If we don’t head in this direction, we’ll be in court for another decade,” she said. “What’s the point of that? It’s already been five years. Victim survivors, they need some closure to this.”
Lawyers representing many of the survivors welcomed Bishop Brennan’s effort to seek a settlement through mediation rather than in court. The Brooklyn diocese “has contested and fought these claims, refused to accept responsibility and has engaged in scorched-earth, hard-core litigation,” said Jeff Anderson, who said his firm represented more than 212 survivors from Brooklyn and Queens, plus another 300 who have filed abuse claims against the Archdiocese of New York.
“This is something that could have been done, and should have been done, long before this,” he said.
“This is an excellent step forward for victims,” said Keith Sullivan, a lawyer for several survivors who have already settled with the Brooklyn Diocese. “Victims can maintain their dignity and anonymity through this process and avoid the costly and embarrassing process of litigation.”
The mediators will work with a committee of lawyers representing the accusers to negotiate settlement amounts based in part on the quality of evidence and the severity of the abuse, Mr. Giuffra said.
People who can prove they were parishioners or altar boys of specific churches, and can provide detailed descriptions of interactions with priests or lay staff members who were known abusers, will carry more weight — and possibly receive more settlement money — than those whose accusations do not identify a specific abuser or a location where the abuse occurred.
“There will be a process of identifying and valuing the claims,” Mr. Giuffra said.
Christopher Maag is a reporter covering the New York City region for The Times.
The post Brooklyn Diocese Agrees to Mediation to Settle Over 1,000 Abuse Claims appeared first on New York Times.
