#USA #NY – The Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York has agreed to pay $800 million to resolve sexual abuse claims brought by roughly 1,300 people, according to announcements made Saturday.
The settlement, the second-largest of its kind involving a U.S. Catholic archdiocese, followed more than seven years of litigation. It ranked behind only the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’s 2024 agreement to pay $880 million to about 1,000 claimants.
Archbishop Ronald Hicks confirmed the agreement in an email to clergy on Saturday. He stated that the deal would not become final until the parties signed the documents, an action scheduled for the week of November 6. The framework, reached in May, had required the consent of everyone who filed a claim.
Under the terms, each plaintiff had the option of receiving a lump-sum payment of at least $250,000 or a potentially larger amount after a review of the extent of the alleged abuse. The archdiocese planned to pay the money into a trust. The agreement also called for the release of certain documents related to sexual offenders and required the archdiocese to maintain and update a public list of credibly accused clergy and lay leaders. Survivors retained the ability to pursue additional claims against the archdiocese’s insurers.
“The unanimous agreement of survivors who filed claims against the Archdiocese of New York marks a powerful moment in the pursuit of justice,” Jeff Anderson, an attorney representing people who filed more than 1,000 of the claims, said in a statement.
Hicks wrote that the agreement would allow the archdiocese, “please God, [to] bring some measure of healing and reconciliation to all victim-survivors.” He added that it would let the archdiocese turn its attention once again to its core mission of preaching the Gospel, caring for the sick and those in need, welcoming strangers, and educating children.
The claims arose largely under New York’s Child Victims Act of 2019, which extended the deadline for survivors of child sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits and created a temporary window for older cases. To fund compensation, the archdiocese had previously cut its operating budget, laid off staff, and sold valuable properties, including its headquarters and land beneath a Manhattan hotel.
The settlement was designed to avoid a bankruptcy filing by the archdiocese, which officials had warned could prolong the process and reduce eventual payouts. Other recent diocesan settlements included a $395 million agreement by the Archdiocese of San Francisco and a court-approved deal of at least $230 million by the Archdiocese of New Orleans.
The Catholic Church in the United States has paid billions of dollars in total settlements related to clergy sexual abuse in recent years, following similar statute-of-limitations reforms in multiple states.
Cover Image: St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the seat of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York.
