NY Archdiocese Launches Effort to Reach More Sex Abuse Victims

The Archdiocese of New York launched an outreach effort in March in an attempt to locate local victims of priest sex abuse who have yet to come forward with claims.

It's the second phase of a two-part program to address the scandal as it affected parishioners and priests in the archdiocese, which stretches from the mid-Hudson Valley to Staten Island.

In all, 144 people filed reports during the first phase of the program, according to Joseph Zwilling, Director of the Office of Communications for the Archdiocese — and out of those, 44 have accepted compensation offers.

The second phase of the program, called the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program, began March 1.

In this phase, church officials have launched an outreach effort in an attempt to locate potential victims who have yet to come forward with sex-abuse claims.

Since the program is not restricted by a statute of limitations, the Archdiocese will be able to settle abuse cases dating back "10, 20, 40 years," Zwilling told Patch. The Archdiocese is relying on the media, he said, to raise awareness about the campaign.

There are 77 priests publicly accused from the New York Archdiocese, according to BishopAccountability.org.

The Archdiocese announced in October it would begin taking out loans to pay people abused by priests, according to Reuters.

It has also petitioned a Manhattan state court to approve a loan so the church can begin compensating victims.

"Because we have begun the process of paying out the compensation to victims, the archdiocese has taken this short-term loan to cover the payments," Zwilling told Reuters.

For now, the Archdiocese has a $100 million mortgage for one of its Manhattan properties in place with JPMorgan Chase but needs the court's approval under New York state law to enact it, Zwilling said.

Unlike most mortgages, the money won't go toward purchasing or improving property; it will go toward funding a compensation program for the victims of sex abuse, Reuters reported.

The archdiocese will look to take out long-term loans later this year when it has a better understanding of how much compensation money will be paid out, Zwilling told Reuters.

Read the full Reuters article here.

By Brendan Krisel and Lanning Taliaferro

Photo by Ed Schipul via Flickr/Creative Commons