Cardinals arrive, prior to attend a mass celebrated by the Pope, for the Cardinals and Bishops who have died over the course of the year at the Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican on November 3, 2018. (Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP via Getty Images)
The Archdiocese of New York has reached a proposed settlement exceeding $800 million with 1,300 people who accused Catholic clergy members and lay leaders of sexual abuse, potentially allowing the church to avoid bankruptcy after years of litigation.
Attorneys representing the accusers said Friday that every plaintiff had accepted the revised agreement, clearing a major obstacle to one of the largest sexual abuse settlements involving the Catholic Church in the United States.
Archbishop Ronald A. Hicks confirmed the progress Saturday in a message to priests, according to The New York Times, but said the agreement would not become final until all parties formally signed it.
“We are on the verge of being able to, please God, bring some measure of healing and reconciliation to all victim-survivors,” Hicks wrote.
The proposed agreement would give each claimant a choice between a lump-sum payment of at least $250,000 and a potentially larger award determined by a review of the alleged abuse.
It would also require the archdiocese to publish the names of clergy members and lay leaders credibly accused of sexual abuse and update the list when additional allegations are substantiated.
The settlement nearly collapsed over objections from a small group of plaintiffs who believed the compensation was inadequate. Attorneys had warned that failure to secure unanimous agreement could push the archdiocese into bankruptcy, delaying payments and potentially reducing the amounts victims would receive.
To resolve the impasse, the archdiocese negotiated with an insurer to increase the fund for the remaining holdouts to $20 million to be divided equally among them, the Times reported.
Trusha Goffe, an attorney with Jeff Anderson & Associates, informed the firm’s nearly 300 clients Friday that the final objections had been resolved.
“All of the survivors agreed to the revised deal. This means that the settlement you agreed to will move forward,” Goffe wrote.
The agreement follows years of financial pressure on the archdiocese, which has sold property and reduced expenses while seeking money to resolve the claims. An earlier $800 million proposal announced in late April called for an initial payment of approximately $615 million, followed by $185 million within about 15 months.
The litigation arose largely from claims brought under New York’s Child Victims Act, which opened a temporary window for lawsuits involving childhood sexual abuse that otherwise would have been barred by statutes of limitations.
The Archdiocese of New York serves Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, and seven counties north of New York City.
Other major Catholic jurisdictions have reached substantial agreements over similar allegations. The Archdiocese of San Francisco agreed in June to a $395 million settlement covering approximately 530 accusers, while the Archdiocese of Los Angeles reached an $880 million agreement in 2024, bringing its total abuse-related payouts to more than $1.5 billion.
Paul Mones, whose law firm represents 33 plaintiffs in the New York litigation, said the agreement followed extraordinary persistence by the accusers.
“The survivors showed an amazing amount of perseverance and patience here,” Mones told the Times. “After a lifetime of pain and struggle, they mustered the energy to push that final mile. And hopefully this deal will give them a degree of solace and healing.”
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