The San Francisco Archdiocese has agreed to pay $395 million and implement a series of child protection and transparency reforms to settle hundreds of lawsuits brought by survivors who say they were sexually abused by clergy and other church employees as children.
The agreement, announced Monday by plaintiffs’ attorneys and the Archdiocese, would resolve roughly 530 claims filed after California temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse lawsuits and comes nearly three years after the Archdiocese sought bankruptcy protection.
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Under the terms of the proposed settlement, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone must turn over internal church records to an independent “child protection consultant” for a report that will be published on the Archdiocese website.
Additional reforms include:
- More robust public disclosure of priests accused of abuse.
- Placement of an abuse survivor on the Archdiocese review board that reviews clergy abuse allegations.
- Release of survivors from existing nondisclosure agreements and a ban on future confidentiality agreements.
Archbishop Cordileone has also agreed to write a letter of apology to each survivor, according to plaintiffs’ attorneys.
