Bankruptcy Under Way for San Diego Diocese

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The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego filed for bankruptcy last month to protect itself from an avalanche of priest abuse lawsuits. Some of the cases also involved the diocese of San Bernardino, which covers a sprawling desert region that reaches to the Arizona border. It was part of the San Diego Diocese until 1978. San Bernardino was counting on San Diego to help it settle its share of the lawsuits.

But as Steven Cuevas from member station KPCC reports, the bankruptcy has changed all that.

STEVEN CUEVAS: When Pat Olivas(ph) was ready for kindergarten, his parents sent him to St. Georgia's Catholic School in Ontario, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles. Olivas stayed at the school through eight grade. He says he looked up to one priest in particular, Father Anthony Rodriguez(ph). The kids just called him Father Tony.

Mr. PAT OLIVAS: I just remember him being a cool priest. I think the big thing was that, you know, he rode a motorcycle. That was different from any other priest that I ever met before.

CUEVAS: Rodriguez was also a serial child molester. He's admitted to molesting dozens of boys while he was a priest. He resigned in the early 1990s and later served a 10-year prison sentence for molesting an 11-year-old boy. In a sworn declaration, Rodriguez says church officials knew about his conduct and kept shuffling him from parish to parish in what is now the Diocese of San Bernardino.

Pat Olivas says in the late 1970s, Father Rodriguez sexually abused him. He's now suing the San Diego Diocese, which was in-charge of San Bernardino area parishes at the time of his alleged molestation. But the San Diego Diocese bankruptcy has temporally frozen his lawsuit and more than a hundred other priest abuse lawsuits. Olivas says he was looking forward to his day in court.

Mr. OLIVAS: That would have been nice, yes. Having the files come out in court is a big step in the healing process. To actually know what the church knew about not only my perpetrator, but of all those involved in the current lawsuits was - I think it's crucial to our healing.

CUEVAS: But 17 other lawsuits that involved priests that worked in both the San Diego and San Bernardino dioceses may still move forward. Before it filed for bankruptcy, the San Diego Diocese had offered to cover the other diocese's legal penalties from the shared lawsuits.

But now, San Diego is backing off that promise. The San Bernardino Diocese might have to settle lawsuits on its own. But if it can be proven that San Diego knowingly dumped problem priests into the San Bernardino area, the San Bernardino Diocese might be able to sue San Diego.

Professor DAN SCHECHTER (Loyola Law School): For failure to warn of the dangerous propensities of these priests.

CUEVAS: Dan Schechter is a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

Prof. SCHECHTER: Just as if there's a police agency who has a rouge cop, and they then persuade another agency to take the cop on board and then that policeman engages in further misconduct, the second agency would make a claim against the first for failure to disclose the actual propensities of this employee.

CUEVAS: If the San Bernardino Diocese ends up settling the 17 cases against it, the payout could be big. Recent clergy sex-abuse lawsuits in other Southern California dioceses have settled for about a million and a half dollars each. But San Bernardino Bishop Gerald Barnes says one thing his diocese won't do is file for bankruptcy.

Father Howard Lincoln, a spokesman for the bishop, reads an excerpt from a letter the bishop wrote to parishioners.

Father HOWARD LINCOLN (Spokesman, San Bernardino Diocese): He said it that - and here I'm going to quote him - we have sufficient insurance coverage and indemnification to ensure we can compensate victims and continue to carry on our mission of preaching the Gospel.

CUEVAS: Pat Olivas still lives in the same Ontario neighborhood he grew up in, just blocks from the Catholic school where he says his abuse occurred 30 years ago. He spends a lot of his spare time these days counseling other survivors of alleged clergy sex abuse. His own scars still run deep.

Mr. OLIVAS: You know, going pass the church, you know, I get a sense of anxiety, you know. I'd like to see it, you know, eventually come to an end. I would like to know what the church knew about my abuser, about Rodriguez. I just can't believe that they didn't know.

CUEVAS: The San Diego Diocese bankruptcy went to court last week. Attorneys say it might take more than a year to resolve all the cases of alleged clergy sex abuse.

For NPR News, I'm Steven Cuevas.

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