Clergy abuse survivors react to New York diocese's bankruptcy settlement
PJ D'Amico said he was a sixth grader the first time his priest sexually abused him. He said Fr. Alfred Soave, then-pastor at St. Hugh of Lincoln Church in Huntington Station, New York, abused him repeatedly through the eighth grade. D'Amico, 57, will receive compensation starting in 2025 from the Diocese of Rockville Centre. (Courtesy of PJ D'Amico)
January 16, 2025
By Sean Piccoli
Editor's note: The Catholic Church has spent billions of dollars settling claims from sexual abuse cases. National Catholic Reporter is investigating the costs to Catholics, parishes and the church in its new series "The Reckoning." NCR's investigative reports, including this series, are made possible in part through the generosity of Annette Lomont.
This is Part 2 of a two-part story on the sexual abuse settlement in the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York. You can read Part 1 here.
PJ D'Amico said his "45-year ordeal" began the first time he was sexually abused by his priest.
D'Amico was a sixth grader who worshiped with his family at St. Hugh of Lincoln Church in Huntington Station, New York. He said the pastor at St. Hugh of Lincoln, Fr. Alfred B. Soave, abused him repeatedly through the eighth grade, including on the day of his confirmation.
D'Amico, 57, is one of about 600 survivors of sexual abuse who will receive approximately $323 million in payments beginning this year from the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, which oversees St. Hugh of Lincoln and 135 other parishes on New York's Long Island. After four years of federal bankruptcy proceedings, the Diocese of Rockville Centre agreed to settle the claims brought by people who said dozens of priests and other adults employed by the diocese sexually abused them in previous decades.
A federal judge approved the bankruptcy settlement in December, clearing the way for survivors to begin receiving restitution. For D'Amico, the settlement comes as both a relief and a painful reminder of a long struggle with a trusted institution that exposed him to lasting harm and then declared bankruptcy when faced with a deluge of lawsuits.
"It was more like 'uncle' than 'do the right thing,' " he said of the diocese's ultimate decision to reach an agreement that will compensate him and other abuse victims. "They finally realized it was going to cost more not to settle and made a pragmatic decision."
John Salveson, who said he was sexually abused by a Long Island priest beginning in 1969 at age 13 and received compensation from the diocese in 2017 under a different program, agreed that the bankruptcy settlement feels more practical than moral.
"This is strictly an economic issue for them," Salveson told the National Catholic Reporter. "This is a risk-management issue for them. And I spent way too many years trying to get them to see this as a moral issue. They just don't think it's a moral issue."
For his part, D'Amico said, "The monetary resolution is going to be both hard to accept and a relief to accept."
D'Amico's Florida-based lawyer, Adam Horowitz, called the settlement a "milestone" for his 24 clients, ages 40-75, and the hundreds of others who were victimized as boys and teens.
"It's a large sum of money that is a recognition that abuse occurred on a really large scale," Horowitz said of the estimated $323 million. For abuse survivors, he said the settlement — both in its financial terms and other provisions for holding the diocese to account — is "a validation and a recognition that this happened, that they're believed, and there was a serious wrong that occurred."
The settlement doesn't address every case of abuse, Horowitz said. "There are many more survivors than the 600 who came forward," he said, including "many who I spoke to who missed the deadline" to file claims against the diocese for past abuses.
Horowitz said a critical outcome of the bankruptcy settlement is that the diocese will have to publicly disclose the identities and personnel files of all known abusers and all who were credibly accused of child sex abuse while working under the diocese's supervision as priests or in other roles.
The names of more than 100 priests already appear in civil and bankruptcy court documents. Horowitz estimated that as many as 170 perpetrators have been identified, in all, over the course of the proceedings.
Whatever the exact figure, the diocese will have to produce a comprehensive accounting of it, available for public review, although the logistics of how and where to house the documents and make them accessible is still being worked out, Horowitz said.
"There will be a record of who knew what and when they knew it," he said.
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