In a widely anticipated move, the Diocese of Rockville Centre has filed for federal bankruptcy protection. In their announcement yesterday, diocesan officials blamed a surge of priest abuse lawsuits and COVID-19 for the bankruptcy filing. What wasn’t mentioned concerns the fact that a bankruptcy filing…
Chief Judge Carl L. Bucki of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Western District of New York ruled Friday that the bar date for abuse victims to submit claims should be the same day that the extended Child Victims Act expires – Aug. 14, 2021.…
Father Michel Mulloy, 66, was appointed by Pope Francis on June 19 to be bishop of Duluth, Minnesota and was due to be formally installed in a ceremony on October 1, 2020. However, in the interim, a sexual abuse allegation was lodged against the priest…
In 2016, prior to his court appearance to provide testimony against a Catholic bishop, Pope Francis summoned the priest to the Vatican for a talk about his testimony. Francis wanted to know what the priest was going to say about an embattled bishop and let…
Recently a confluence of events has led me to reflect upon a significant area of my work as a lawyer. For the last two decades, I have represented and advocated for survivors of childhood sexual abuse-whether they survived abuse from a Catholic priest, minister, rabbi,…
In a recent 2019 summary of changes in statutes of limitation for child sex abuse, written by CHILDUSA, 41 states had either changed their statutes of limitations or had bills pending to do so. In the past two years 15 states have extended or suspended…
According to a report issued the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in 2019 the number of allegations of Catholic clergy sex abuse of minors more than quadrupled compared to the average from the previous five years. The 2019 report, which covers July 2018 through June…
Today, I filed a civil sexual abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of Metuchen concerning a courageous survivor who was abused by McCarrick in the early 1980’s when McCarrick was the bishop of Metuchen. Apart from all the recent news stories about McCarrick, I learned about…
The Diocese of Rockville Centre suffered a setback in court this week when Nassau County Supreme Court Justice Steven Jaeger denied the Diocese’s motion to stay the lawsuits. The Diocese has argued that the lawsuits may force it into bankruptcy. The Diocese of Rockville Centre…
Insiders say the Vatican sponsored investigation of disgraced and former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been completed for months and sits gathering dust on Pope Francis’ desk. In the meantime, survivors come forward and file abuse lawsuits against Catholic dioceses in New Jersey, the Archdiocese of…
