Facing hundreds of millions of dollars in potential liability for sex abuse claims, the diocese that ministers to Eastern Shore Catholics filed for federal bankruptcy-law protection hours before the civil trial of a former priest was to have started Monday.
Bishop W. Francis Malooly described the Chapter 11 petition filed late Sunday as a difficult but necessary step that would enable the Diocese of Wilmington, Del., to "fairly compensate all victims through a single process established by the bankruptcy court."
But Wilmington attorney Thomas S. Neuberger, who is representing 88 plaintiffs in lawsuits against the diocese, its parishes and priests, called it "a desperate effort to hide the truth from the public and conceal thousands of pages of scandalous documents from the public."
The move delays the first in the string of trials that await Francis DeLuca, the former Delaware priest who was defrocked last year after he pleaded guilty in 2007 to multiple counts of molesting a teenage grandnephew in New York.
DeLuca, named in at least 20 lawsuits, is one of several priests from the Wilmington diocese targeted by more than 140 individuals during a two-year window in which the Delaware state legislature permitted victims to file claims over alleged abuse that might have occurred decades ago.
More than two dozen parishes have been named as co-defendants. They include at least three in Maryland: St. Mary Refuge of Sinners in Cambridge, St. Francis de Sales in Salisbury and St. Dennis in Galena.
Malooly, who was an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Baltimore before he was named last year to head the Wilmington diocese, said filing for bankruptcy was "a painful decision, one that I had hoped and prayed I would never have to make," but said it "offers the best opportunity, given finite resources, to provide the fairest possible treatment of all victims of sexual abuse by priests of our diocese."
Malooly said he was concerned that the eight cases that were set to begin with the first trial of DeLuca on Monday could have left the diocese with "inadequate resources to fairly compensate" more than 130 claimants. In bankruptcy protection, the diocese could coordinate its response to all the lawsuits.
"The Chapter 11 filing is in no way intended to dodge responsibility for past criminal misconduct by clergy - or for mistakes made by diocesan authorities," Malooly said. "Nor does the bankruptcy process enable the diocese to avoid or minimize its responsibility to victims of abuse. Instead, the Chapter 11 filing will enable the diocese to meet its obligations head-on and fulfill its responsibility to all victims."
