By EFE
30 Sep 2023, 17:14 PM EDT
The Catholic archdiocese of Baltimore, Maryland, declared bankruptcy on Friday, two days before a new law allows lawsuits for sexual abuse regardless of the time that has passed since the crimes.
Archbishop William Lori indicated that the decision will allow “the archdiocese to equitably compensate the surviving victims of child sexual abuse, and ensure that the Church can continue its mission and its ministry.”
Lori noted that the archdiocese faces a large number of legal claims for sexual abuse against minors that were previously prevented by the statute of limitations.
Attorney Jeff Anderson, of a law firm in St. Paul, Minnesota, who has represented victims of such abuse, said the decision to declare bankruptcy serves “to hide (the archdiocese’s) assets and hide the truth from survivors who were abused by members of the clergy.”
A new law passed by the Maryland General Assembly in April and taking effect Sunday, October 1 eliminates the sunset statute and allows lawsuits over abuse without a time limit.
The Maryland Attorney General’s Office has released a 456-page report identifying 158 clergy, teachers, seminarians and deacons who in the Archdiocese of Baltimore allegedly abused more than 600 minors since the 1940s.
With this decision, there are now three dozen organizations that have sought protection from the bankruptcy law for which the Catholic Church, according to the organization Bishop Accountability, has paid more than $3 billion in compensation.
The Catholic Church has faced legal challenges in recent decades from victims who suffered abuse by members of the clergy around the world.
The most onerous resolution in the United States occurred in 2007 when the archdiocese of Los Angeles, California, paid $600 million in compensation to 508 people who had accused priests of sexual abuse.
Last August the archdiocese of San Francisco declared bankruptcy, joining the dioceses of Oakland and Santa Rosa in California, faced with the cost of compensation.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore includes the city of the same name and nine of Maryland’s 23 counties with 3.3 million inhabitants, of which about 525,500 are Catholic.
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