The Northwest Jesuits say they’ve been driven to bankruptcy by the hundreds of sex-abuse lawsuits filed against them.
(A story about pedophile priests in Alaska and an alleged “dumping ground” for them in Native communities, printed a few weeks ago in The Stranger, is here.)
According to a written statement by Rev. Patrick Lee, the Northwest Jesuits have filed Chapter 11, because “with approximately 200 additional claims pending or threatened, it is the only way we believe that all claimants can be offered a fair financial settlement within the limited resources of the province.”
The real reason for the bankruptcy, according attorney Ken Roosa, is to bring current and future lawsuits “to a screeching halt.”
Filing bankruptcy, he says, means an automatic stay on court actions—meaning the cases won’t go to trial and won’t get a public hearing to determine how and why so many serial child molesters (some of them known child molesters) lived and worked unhindered among the Jesuits for decades.
(Individuals named in the lawsuit, like Fr. Steven Sundborg, president of Seattle University, might be separated from the bankruptcy settlements, Roosa says, if the court allows it. “But,” he says, “the bankruptcy court has a tendency to wrap everything up in one package for judicial economy.”)
The bankruptcy will have minimal financial effect on Jesuit universities like Gonzaga and Seattle University, as those educational institutions were made separate corporate entities years ago.
“Our hope is that by filing Chapter 11, we can begin to bring this sad chapter in our Province’s history to an end,” Rev. Lee wrote.
(Which is a little callous, isn’t it? By quietly dispensing with the current lawsuits and legally blocking others from arising, the church hopes to call it even? What about, you know, truth and justice and stuff?)
The Survival Network of Those Abused by Priests also issued a statement, calling the bankruptcy “a morally irresponsible and selfish decision designed solely to protect complicit church officials who ignored or concealed knowledge and suspicions of horrific child sex crimes.”
Lee and the Northwest Jesuits declined to answer any questions; phone calls to Seattle University have not yet been returned.
HA. HA. HA.
Now if more churches would just follow suit.
Um, quit breaking the law and you probably won’t have to worry about the lawsuits. Stop fucking with kids.
The kids aren’t just victims of the priests. They are victims of their parents and of their parents’ religion. Any parent who let church officials handle the matters instead of filing criminal complaints should have their feet burned until they reject Catholicism.
Roosa saw this coming a mile away, right? Shouldn’t be too tough to convince a judge the Jesuits filed as a scheme to hinder and delay plaintiffs/creditors. Hire bankruptcy co-counsel to churn out bad-faith arguments in a motion to convert to Chapter 7 or to dismiss, so Roosa can get on with the settlin’.
That’s what would happen on a very special episode of Law & Order SVU, anyway.
Would you prefer that their remaining money get tied up with lawyers and courts? Declaring bankruptcy leaves more money for the victims. It is sad to see that a well meaning organization is being destroyed by a few bad priests and those who would aid them in hiding their actions.
Driven to bankruptcy by all the sex-abuse lawsuits?
Huh. Guess they shoulda thought of that before letting these priests abuse so many kids with impunity.
Eventually, their Holy Catholic Irrelevances will be constrained to sell postage-stamp-size portions of the Sistine Chapel ceiling to finance the child molestation judgments against them and their touchy-feely priests. One looks forward to seeing the Pietà auctioned off on e-Bay.
The parent company back at corporate HQ has plenty of money. Those Prada and Gucci garments have deep, deep pockets.
This is what they get for having homosexuals in the order.
do the Mormons get sued like this?
or just Satan’s Church, Catholic ….
@9, is it homosexuals who are molesting the little girls, too? Those are some very broad-minded homosexuals they’ve got there, then.
I’d say it’s more accurate to say “this is what they get for having everyone swear to celibacy”.
Have they declared moral bankruptcy too? What court is that settled in?
@10, the Mormons would get sued like this is if they repeatedly raped the children placed in their care, and when caught substituted their own internal justice system for that of the state. Child molestation is a felony, and when you find some, your first phone call should be to the cops, not to your priest, or your priest’s priest. Especially since the Catholic internal justice system is only interested in protecting the offenders, not the victims.
If the Mormons did that, yes, they would get sued.
@4: the idea that filing in chapter 11 is itself a scheme to hinder and delay creditors would seem insane to a bankruptcy judge. The whole point is to sort out the debtor’s affairs in an orderly way. I can’t imagine a judge finding that this is a bad-faith filing.
That said, while the automatic stay will bring lawsuits “to a screeching halt,” this is a temporary state of affairs. The plaintiffs should be able to get relief from the automatic stay to liquidate their claims in state court. True, their claims might not get paid in full, but that’s what happens when an entity is insolvent.
Magic! All of the Jesuit’s wealth is tied to the universities which are suddenly off limits? I hope a judge sees through that ruse and opens the spigot.
a university is a good thing. i don’t mind if they go after the “vatican”. but i’m not sure going after schools are hospitals is the best way…
@13 Read any of the stories about Mormon boot camps? My hunch would be that this shit is going on with Mormons as well, but given how close knit and insular Mormonism is, it just has not come out yet.
11
The homosexuals molest little girls?!
That is sick!
“Christian” priests are bad for children, people. Get that into your heads. Bankrupt the fucking phony bastards. Bankrupt the fucking Vatican too. Evil is as evil does.
@17, “my hunch would be” is not grounds for a successful lawsuit.
Note that the real crime by the Catholic Church is not the molestation, which can and does happen anywhere, but the massive coverup. When a priest rapes a child, he commits a crime, but the diocese bears no responsibility. When the diocese finds out about it, but refuses to bring in the police immediately, THEY are committing a crime, which is not just an ordinary crime but a conspiracy. When they cover up and reassign priests, they are fucked. Reassigning a molesting priest is not a crime by the priest; it is a crime by the diocese.
If you find a dead body in your hallway, do you call the cops, or do you start to clean it up? The zillion-dollar lawsuits all started when the church first said “we’ll handle it”.
@19, it doesn’t have anything to do with “evil” or “phony bastards” or “Christianity”. It has to do with very specific criminal acts.
@17, never said it was. But you could have made the same arguement 15 years ago before all this shit came out about the catholic church. The church did not just start abusing kids yesterday this has been going for decades. Its just that 30 years ago the church was much more powerful and a much more important part of a community. When that collapsed people could come forward more easily.
What I’m saying is that I would not be surprised if the same thing happened with the Mormons.
Fair and fair: Hey, the so-called victims and their lawyers are using the court and the law; why can’t the other side do it too? Isn’t this the American way? What I am more interested in is, if you know more about it: How much money had the lawyers made and how much had the victims made in this whole process? I would imagine that lawyers like Roosa are pretty pretty upset cause they are realizing that the pocket isn’t so deep and they had wasted all of this time…I’d be interested in seeing how fast they’ll dump their currently clients and move on to greener pastures…
Greener pastures like: public schools? juvenile detention centers? foster homes? nursing homes? half-way houses? summer camps?
@22 Lawyers, the only people in society who should not be paid for their work. In almost every case the fee is a bout a third of what is collected. So yeah if you score a big case you can make a fair bit of money. Of course you can also work for years and get absolutely nothing if you lose.
But hey, why should a kid who was abused get anything, its not like they are likely scarred for life or anything.
If you want to look at people getting paid for nothing I suggest you start with priests. Now there are some parasites for you.
Has anyone questioned the integrity of the lawyers representing the latest plaintiffs? Granted, the sexual abuse of children is horrible and justice should be sought and actual victims should be heard and compensated for actual harm by virtue of our legal justice system. But don’t equate allegations with truth. Is the difference between the American Justice System and the European Justice system not most pronounced in the fact that Americans are innocent until proven guilty rather than guilty until proven innocent? Priests abusing children is not new news. If the newest plaintiffs didn’t recover the memories of being abused in the first five years of this decade when every newspaper and television headline was riddled with pedophile priests from coast to coast … why all of a sudden do these memories come???? I say look at the so called “lawyers” representing them. It seems to me that these lawyers have gone to great lengths to assure that these cases will never see the inside of a court room by amassing this recent slew of plaintiffs which would make taking them to trial a financial impossibility based upon the cost of legal fees alone not to mention it would greatly profit them and other lawyers while costing the Jesuits and the plaintiffs. The tragedy is that actual victims will receive far less compensation because of the banckruptcy and these lawyers representing the most recent alleged “victims” will receive outlandish compensation – millions upon millions more. These are the same lawyers that pop up all around the country to “represent” victims of clergy sexual abuse – like in San Diego, South Dakota, Delaware, and Alaska … just to name a few. Are you going to tell me that this is altruism for the victims? Why don’t they then take money to cover their costs and the average yearly salary for a lawyer in the state where they reside and turn the rest of the Jesuits assets over to the plaintiffs to compensate them for their suffering. No, instead they will shake the bushes all across the northwest to find more “victims”. Hence, they will make more money and the actual victims will receive less and less. The more victims, the more money for lawyers – the (unjust) logic is simple. As for the Stranger, did you ever look at the court records to see if these lawyers have been disciplined by the court for their lack of ethics in a courtroom or a deposition during proceedings??? Just curious. Maybe this pancake might actually have two sides. Hmm? I don’t want to sound brash but this whole thing is a kin to the Salem Witch Trials. No? I implore you, look at the situation with a little logic – perhaps some statistics. I would venture to bet that the actual percentage of priests that have sexually abused children is less than or equal to the percentage of American males that sexually abuse children. Also, what is the percentage of Jesuits from the Northwest that have sexually abused children? How does that compare to the national average? The answer to these questions does not provide justification – just some context that might lead to actual truth rather than slanderous spin. I think that if some statistics which are FACT are brought into the discussion, perhaps these lawyers will be exposed for what they truly are: greed driven parasites that would not know a legal ethic if it were a train that ran them over. Yet to be mentioned is the character assasination perpetuated in the name of “justice”. Harm should be compensated – victims should receive restitution … but do not mistake what is taking place between the attourneys involved in these cases and the jesuits with anything in the neighborhood of justice – please … I know that all of you, especially the writers at The Stranger, are more intelligent than that – no?
#25. Denial has gotten the Church to this point. Want to keep it up?