John Manly Blasts Catholic Insurance Company’s Role in Delaying Fairbanks Diocese Bankruptcy

Posted on December 17, 2009     |     Firm News,Sexual Abuse

For many survivors, this plan is acceptable and long overdue, especially considering the duration and severity of decades of child sexual abuse in the Diocese of Fairbanks and the fact that many victims have had to wait more than 50 years to see any accountability from church leaders. Unfortunately, another Catholic Church-run organization is attempting to derail any hopes of a quick resolution to years of suffering of sex abuse survivors.

The delay tactics of the Fairbanks Diocese’s insurance company, Catholic Mutual Relief Society of America, a Catholic Church-controlled and bishop-run insurance company with billions of dollars in available reserves, are despicable. They have the ability to easily and fairly settle with the hundreds of impoverished and suffering Alaska Native victims so that these victims may get the vital health and therapy services they need. Instead, Catholic Mutual is attempting to frivolously oppose this new plan using tricky legal maneuvers in the hopes that victims, many of whom are aging, ailing and dying, will not live long enough to receive any payment.

For almost ten years, this insurance company – owned and operated by the Catholic hierarchy – has paid lawyers to maneuver, obfuscate and otherwise prevent Alaska Native victims of child rape by Catholic priests from having their well-deserved day in court. Now, Catholic Mutual, through their New York lawyers, is seeking to block any plan that would give the victims even a fraction of what they are owed by the Diocese of Fairbanks. It is another shameful chapter in the history of the Catholic abuse scandal: a Catholic insurance company – run by white bishops outside Alaska – seeks to deny justice to Native People raped as children, even when the Diocese has agreed to settle. Our clients demand the white Bishop-owners of Catholic Mutual drop their opposition to the plan and allow Alaska Native victims to obtain a small measure of justice and finally begin to heal. Given the gravity of the harm done to these children, any other position is grossly immoral and abominable.