Catholic Churches Going Bankrupt as Families Abandon the Church to Protect their Children from Pedophile Priests

It was reported earlier this week that another Catholic Diocese in California has filed for bankruptcy due to recent surges in lawsuits filed against pedophile priests during the past few years, which has caused attendance and support for Catholic Churches to plummet. The Fresno Diocese is not the first one to file for bankruptcy due to backlashes from pedophile priests, but follows the Diocese of Sacramento, the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the Archdiocese of Oakland, and the Diocese of Santa Rosa. While Catholic Churches across the U.S. have been going bankrupt in recent years as more and more cases are filed by the victims of Catholic pedophile priests who prey on children, that process accelerated in California after a 2019 legislative bill was passed that opened a three-year “look-back window” that would allow survivors of childhood sexual abuse to file suits based on old claims that would normally have fallen outside the statute of limitations. When the window closed in 2022, more than 2,000 individuals around the state had filed cases against the Catholic Church. Many of the victims who are now adults and were formerly abused by Catholic clergy, claim that filing bankruptcy by these dioceses is a cop out to avoid paying out settlements to the victims. And this problem of pedophile clergy is not limited to just the Catholic Church, but is a problem in ALL Christian Churches who have a central authority figure or figures that claim to be more holy than the non-clergy, and are trusted to have access to children.