Clergy sex abuse survivors to get payments next year from settlement with Rockville Centre diocese

Hundreds of survivors of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church on Long Island likely will not receive their payments until sometime next year despite a $323 million settlement announced on Thursday, the leading lawyer for the survivors said.

The payouts will be determined by a claims reviewer who will rate each case according to a points system ranking the type of abuse, how it impacted a survivor’s life, and other factors, the lawyer, James Stang, said Friday. He hopes the payouts can be made in the first quarter of 2025.

The point system is "not meant to trigger anyone. It’s meant to reflect that we’re conscious of the vast range of conduct," Stang said.

Meanwhile, the 132 parishes in the Diocese of Rockville Centre will be responsible for paying part of the settlement, though church officials on Friday would not say how much.

Lawyers for the diocese and about 600 survivors of childhood sexual abuse by clergy announced in federal bankruptcy court on Thursday that a "global" deal had been reached after four years of court battles.

The $323 million settlement is one of the largest in the country for Catholic dioceses in bankruptcy. Rockville Centre's diocese, home to 1.2 million Catholics, is one of the largest in the United States.

Stang said Friday the monetary compensation to survivors will not be coming immediately because of required procedures. A main one will be a vote by the survivors to approve or reject the plan. That vote probably will not happen until late November, he said.

Stang said he expects an overwhelming majority of the survivors to approve the plan, unlike in April when an overwhelming majority rejected the diocese’s latest offer of $200 million, not including payments from insurance companies.

The diocese’s share of the new deal is $232.8 million, which will come from the diocese itself, the parishes and other related entities. The diocese on Friday declined to say what share would be paid by the parishes, though it said most of the money will not come from parishes. The diocese declined to say how parishes would raise the money for their contribution but said it would not involve special Sunday collections at Masses.

The diocese’s contribution will come in part from the sale of some of its properties such as land at its former seminary in Lloyd Harbor and its headquarters in Rockville Centre, church officials said.

Insurance companies will add in just over $85 million for the global settlement and Counsel for the Creditor's Committee, a group of lawyers that represent the interests of the survivors, will contribute $3 million.

Stang noted that one insurance company’s contribution is unresolved because the company, Arrowood, is itself in bankruptcy. That company is handling some 40%, or about 240, of the 600 sexual abuse cases. The Arrowood settlement will likely take months or even years to complete, he said, but that will not interfere with the payouts and may even provide additional future money for survivors.

The diocese declared bankruptcy on Oct. 1, 2020, citing potential payouts from the New York State Child Victims Act. The law opened a one-year window allowing childhood victims of sex abuse to file lawsuits regardless of how long ago the alleged abuse occurred. The window was extended to two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

After the diocese declared bankruptcy, the cases were sent to the bankruptcy court.

Penn State Law Professor Marie T. Reilly said Friday the diocese’s threat to end the bankruptcy proceedings and let the cases go back to state civil court likely played a role in the parties reaching the settlement.

The survivors and their attorneys may have realized "that the diocese was serious about just walking away from the bankruptcy case and letting them take their chances in state court," she said. That sent a message that "You’re going to [be] stuck with ... years and years and years of expensive litigation."

"I think all of the parties were reading the tea leaves," she said.

The full impact of the settlement on the diocese remains to be seen, but Reilly said some of it is already apparent, and it may, to a degree, affect parishioners. "When parishes have to put cash in the pot, that hits the people in the pews," she said.