The Diocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island, a Roman Catholic diocese in suburban New York filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy yesterday. The Diocese of Rockville Centre had been accused of sexual abuse allegations against children and named in over 200 lawsuits.
Bishop John Oliver Barres said that the Diocese of Rockville Centre could not afford to litigate so many cases and therefore filed for bankruptcy protection.
“What became clear was that the diocese was not going to be able to continue to carry out its spiritual, charitable, and educational missions if it were to
continue to shoulder the increasingly heavy burden of litigation expenses associated with these cases,” Bishop Barres said, and that the Coronavirus
pandemic caused “severe” financial burden.
The Diocese of Rockville Centre serves more than 1.4 million Catholics and plans to still pay employee wages and benefit programs, regardless of this filing.
“This attempt to avoid liability for the horrible things they did is not going to work. We will not let them use bankruptcy to avoid taking responsibility for the
heinous actions they allowed to take place against young children. We intend to hold them fully responsible and give our clients a voice and a platform to begin their healing process.”
Jeff Herman, Herman Law. Industry expert in sex abuse cases.
