The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester has filed for bankruptcy. It’s one of the “difficult decisions” Bishop Salvatore Matano warned last month would have to be made following the New York Child Victims Act.
The act is unleashing a wave of lawsuits filed by people who say they were sexually abused as children by clergy or church staff. By filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the church will have to file a reorganization plan which will include a negotiated sum of money to fund the diocese and its churches, as well as a pool of money to pay creditors. That would include a sum for settling the lawsuits.
The Diocese of Rochester covers 12 counties and has about 360,000 Catholic parishioners attending about 90 churches.
Some of those churches are not directly part of the diocese, and would not be covered under the bankruptcy agreement.