Archdiocese to Pastors: Raise Millions for Sexual Abuse Victims or Go Bankrupt

Stunned pastors were summoned to an all hands meeting by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York in which they were told that despite real estate selloffs and cost cutting, the $300 million fund to pay off past victims of sexual abuse by priests and lay personnel was still hundreds of millions of dollars short of what is needed to reach a global settlement.

That woefully underfunding comes despite real estate selloff of over $800 million over the past two years.

Collectively the pastors, who head up about 200 parishes, were told at the meeting that they will have to dip into their own parish coffers to collectively raise hundreds of millions more–perhaps as much as $400 million more. If the parishes cannot meet the goal, the pastors were told the archdiocese itself would be forced into bankruptcy.

”That is the nuclear option,” said one pastor, referring to the bankruptcy option. “It would be a disaster for the archdiocese.”

Pastors received the devastating news on April 17 at the sprawling 40-acre St. Joseph College and Seminary in Yonkers. The individual levy could range from high six figures to several million for each individual parish in the archdiocese.

Some Catholic schools which have independent foundations could also be hard hit by the levy, said one source.

The pastors are under pressure to quickly come up with the funds to turn over to the archdiocese. ”They hope to do this fairly quickly, sometime in the next few months,” one pastor who attended the meeting said.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who was replaced as the leader of the 2.5 million Catholics in the Archdiocese on Dec. 18, had been under pressure to complete real estate sales to raise money for the victims.

Dolan addressed the sexual abuse crisis several times over the past year as he scrambled to sell off properties to finance a settlement fund. “As we have repeatedly acknowledged, the sexual abuse of minors long ago has brought shame upon our Church,” said Dolan, in a statement released on the feast of the Immaculate Conception on Dec. 8, a mere ten days before his time as the leader of the archdiocese would come to an end when Pope Leo XIV accepted the resignation letter he had tendered to Pope Francis upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75. “I once again ask forgiveness for the failing of those who betrayed the trust placed in them by failing to provide for the safety of our young people.”

He oversaw a dizzying round of sells as his time in office neared the end. In November last year, the archdiocese agreed to sell off its 20 story headquarters building known as the Terrence Cardinal Cooke Center at 1011 First Ave. for $103 million to developer Vanbarton, which plans to add six additional stories and convert it into a residential building.

The biggest real estate sell off came on Dec. 15, 2025, when the Archdiocese, which owned the property underneath the Lotte New York Palace Hotel, agreed to sell it to the hotel owner for $490 million. But there have been selloffs all across Manhattan as parishes in neighborhoods that once housed teaming families of German, Italian, Irish, Hungarian and other immigrant groups moved away. As they left, the mergers and selloffs have been particularly prominent in Manhattan.

Over Labor Day, 2025, the church of Most Holy Redeemer, once known as the German Cathedral of the Lower East Side stopped holding regular masses. Preservation groups are trying to get the church on East 3rd Street landmarked. Cardinal Dolan had journeyed to the church only two years earlier when it had its classic bell tower restored. A short distance away, the Church of St. Mary on Grand Street was landmarked recently. That designation makes it harder to sell off property since it would need approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission,

Efforts to landmark the 130-year-old St. Elizabeth of Hungary church on 213 E. 83rd St., were not successful. The church was one of 31 neighborhood parishes to merge in 2014, but services halted in 2017 and by 2024, the property was sold to developer Avenu for $11.8 million. The developer recently began demolishing the building to erect a seven story luxury condo building.

In Chelsea, the Archdiocese in January 2025, agreed to sell off the church, rectory, school and convent that was once the home of St. Columba on W. 25th St. between Seventh and Eighth Avenues for $48.3 million to Timber Equities. Timber plans to build two 14-story towers with nearly 200 housing units at 335 and 345 W. 25th St.

In June, 2024, the archdiocese also agreed to sell of a plot of land at 181 Ave. D in Loisada for $58 million to Spatial Equity and Community Access which plan to erect 570 units of affordable housing on the site. The site once housed the St. Emeric church and school which was merged into St. Brigid.

The news about the forced round of fundraising about to hit the parishes will not be widely discussed and pastors will not take the case to their entire parish community. “It is not going to be totally democratic,” acknowledged a pastor. Instead, the archdiocese will be sending representatives to meet individually in the next few weeks to meet with pastors, the two lay trustees of each parish and the financial committee to determine how much the parish will be asked to contribute.

“They will try to look at the books of each parish,” said one source. “It will be a case of ‘let us see how much you have in the bank and we’ll tell you how much you have to pay’,” said a source.

Under Dolan, in November, 2025, an ad hoc group of lawyers for the victims and the archdiocese agreed to appoint retired California Judge Daniel J. Buckley as a mediator in a bid to reach a negotiated global settlement without protracted court proceedings. “As we undertook this work, we heard from victim-survivors looking to discuss resolving the remaining cases through a global settlement,” Dolan wrote. “A global settlement is one negotiated with the assistance of a third-party mediator who can help resolve cases more quickly and without the financial and emotional stresses of lengthy court proceedings,” he stated.

The number of victims in Los Angeles and New York were nearly identical.

In the settlement overseen by Judge Buckley in Los Angeles, the LA archdiocese in October 2024, agreed to pay $880 million to settle claims from 1,353 survivors. It was the largest settlement amount of any archdiocese stemming from the sex abuse scandal thus far. That settlement was on top of an earlier settlement in LA of $740 million.

Dolan said the Archdiocese of New York is still involved in a protracted legal battle with Chubb Insurance, which maintains it should not have to pay off sexual abuse claims because it says the archdiocese knew of the sexual abuse among its priests and lay people for years and covered up the crimes.

Pastors were told that regardless of any settlement reached, the archdiocese planned to continue to pursue its case against Chubb.

Archbishop Ronald Hicks, who was formally installed on Feb. 6, was not present at the emergency meeting of pastors, which was overseen instead by bishop Bishop Edmund Whelan, who was appointed vicar general of the archdiocese by Hicks earlier this month.

Also at the meeting was the Archdiocese chief financial officer, Aniello Forcellati and the chancellor, John Cahill.

Calls to the Archdiocese seeking comment were not returned by press time.