The Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, nearly two years after a Pennsylvania grand jury report revealed decades of sexual abuse by more than 300 priests.
In an announcement posted to the diocese’s website, Bishop Ronald Gainer stated that the diocese’s Chapter 11 filing reflected its inability to “meet its financial obligations” to the victims of abuse. Comparing the diocese to a house lacking a strong foundation, Gainer wrote that when the grand jury investigation was launched in 2016, the diocese was already financially ill-equipped to handle the crisis.
“Responding to that investigation forced us to incur very heavy legal costs, which has had harsh financial consequences for the Diocese,” he wrote.
Following the report’s release, the diocese organized the Survivor Compensation Program, which paid out about $12.7 million to 111 victims of abuse. The diocese still faces nearly 200 unpaid claims and is involved in a series of lawsuits, any one of which could “severely cripple” the diocese, Gainer said.
A Chapter 11 filing freezes all current lawsuits and will require future legal action to be settled in bankruptcy court. The diocese hopes to resolve its financial issues “as soon as is reasonably possible,” Gainer wrote.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who oversaw the release of the grand jury report, criticized the diocese’s decision, saying that it follows the decadeslong pattern of covering up abuse.
“It is of no surprise to me that these dioceses who engaged in sophisticated cover up of child sexual abuse have found a legal maneuver to skirt responsibility, absolve themselves financially, and continue to avoid transparency,” Shapiro said in a statement. “This is yet another attempt to deny survivors the justice that they are owed by the Church.”
Harrisburg joins more than 20 dioceses and religious orders that have filed for bankruptcy since 2004, according to BishopAccountability.org, a website that tracks abuse in the Catholic Church. The diocese is the fifth to file since the 2018 sexual abuse allegations against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the grand jury report that opened the Catholic Church to a fresh round of scrutiny concerning sexual abuse.
