ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y. — A Catholic diocese on New York’s Long Island has seen its long-running bankruptcy filing finally concluded, enabling hundreds of sexual abuse claims to be settled. Chief Judge Martin Glenn of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York signed off on the settlement, preliminarily announced in September and said by the diocese to total “just over $323 million.” In a first for U.S. Catholic diocesan bankruptcies, all of the Diocese of Rockville Centre’s parishes completed an “abbreviated Chapter 11” to ensure liability protection from claims covered by the settlement. The Long Island diocese initially filed for Chapter 11 in October 2020, ultimately facing some 500 claims under two New York State lookback laws. As of December, U.S. Catholic dioceses and eparchies have paid or pledged to pay more than $5 billion for abuse claims since 2004, according to aggregated totals from two decades of reports issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. (OSV News)
