Bishop urged to rethink bankruptcy

Advocates for people who say they were sexually abused by Catholic priests here urged Bishop Robert Brom on Wednesday to try to settle their lawsuits rather than proceed with the diocese’s bankruptcy case.

“He should make one in-person stab at settling this,” David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said at a news conference outside St. Joseph’s Cathedral. “If he doesn’t, his sincerity is questionable.”

But the diocese’s attorney, Micheal Webb, said the settlement effort overseen by a Los Angeles judge is now a dead issue. All decisions about settling the lawsuits by 150 people alleging abuse now will be part of the bankruptcy filing, he said.

On Tuesday, the diocese filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11, which allows for financial reorganization. The first of the lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by priests had been set to begin Wednesday.

Instead, a bankruptcy judge will hold a hearing today to begin dealing with the nest of legal issues that the bankruptcy filing has created. One of the main ones is identifying and determining the value of the diocese’s assets.

In a statement explaining why the diocese was filing for bankruptcy, Brom said the lawsuits could deplete the diocese’s funds, crippling its spiritual mission and leaving it without sufficient funds to compensate all of the victims. In the filing, the diocese put its assets at more than $100 million.

But lawyers for accusers say the diocese’s true worth may be $500 million or more. Among other things, the diocese asserts that the property beneath parishes in San Diego and Imperial counties should not be counted.

“Their game is to look like they don’t own anything and then shortchange the victims,” said attorney Ryan DiMaria, whose firm represents 18 of the alleged victims.

Many of the lawsuits were filed under a 2003 state law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for such claims. An attorney for the San Diego diocese and Los Angeles Archdiocese sought in 2005 to have a federal court overturn the law.

Activists allege that Brom decided to have the diocese file for bankruptcy as a way to delay the public airing of allegations that he and his predecessors ignored complaints from parishioners who told them about sexual abuse by priests.

Paul Livingston, director of the San Diego chapter of SNAP, said Brom “took the self-serving coward’s way out. Instead of fostering healing, he’s delaying it.”

Webb said the bankruptcy process does not necessarily have to be a lengthy one. “It depends on how contentious the lawyers are,” he said.

Although the legal issues here will mirror those in the diocese bankruptcy cases in Tucson; Spokane, Wash.; Portland, Ore.; and Davenport, Iowa, rulings in those cases will not be binding in the San Diego case, Webb said.

The San Diego diocese has settled at least 48 claims for sexual abuse in recent years. Documents suggest that the diocese and its insurance carrier paid out about $4 million.

The bankruptcy filing puts the abuse lawsuits in abeyance unless the bankruptcy judge decides to let them proceed. The San Diego diocese has hired the lawyer who handled the bankruptcy filing for the Tucson diocese.

tony.perry@latimes.com