The deadline came and went in July in which every plaintiff in the Sex Abuse case against the Archdiocese had to agree to accept terms of an $800 million an out -of-court settlement offer. The deadline passed July 10 but both sides are still talking.
| 03 Sep 2026 | 05:07
Cardinal Timothy Dolan (left) began settlement talks with people claiming sexual abuse at the hands of priests and lay personnel but it will be up to newly installed Archbishop Ronald Hicks (right) to try to complete a deal. (
)
Traffic passes St. Patrick's Cathedral (far left) and the Lotte New York Palace Hotel. The Archdiocese of New York sold the land beneath the hotel for $490 million in Dec. 2025, a portion of which is going to a $300 million fund the Archdiocese established to pay for past victims of sexual abuse (
)
The Archdiocese of New York and the lawyers representing about 1,300 victims of sexual abuse busted through the July 10 deadline without a final agreement in the proposed $800 million out-of-court settlement deal, but both sides are still talking.
All survivors in the class action suit have to agree to accept the offer before it goes into effect.
“The overwhelming majority of survivors agreed to the proposed settlement. But there is still work to do to try to get the settlement in place and moving forward,” said a spokesperson for the law firm Jeff Anderson & Trusha Goffe, representing the Plaintiffs Liaison Committee.
“Before the settlement is confirmed, however, the Archdiocese and some of the attorneys are working to track down the survivors who may not have agreed to the proposed settlement because they have not been located, they are deceased, or they need more time to review the settlement terms.”
“Whether the settlement moves forward is contingent on 100% of the survivors agreeing to participate in the settlement, so allowing some additional time for this is important.
Lawyers will of course get a big chunk of the settlement money. But each plaintiff was expected to receive a six figure settlement of $250,000. The Plaintiff Liaison Committee is composed of eight law firms representing about 70 percent of the claimants of sexual abuse.
Meanwhile, the archdiocese is scrambling to make sure it can raise the money if the deal reaches a final approval. Selloffs of properties raised over $800 million over the past two years, according to estimates but only about $300 million was set aside in the fund to pay off victims. Among the selloffs: the Archdiocese sold its 20 story headquarters on First Ave to a developer for $103 million and sold the land under the Lotte Palace Hotel next to St. Patrick’s to the hotel owners for $490 million. But the selloffs have not so far raised enough.
The archdiocese, in a story that was broken exclusively by Straus News/Manhattan publications, summoned hundreds of pastors to a secret meeting at Dunwoodie Seminary on April 17 and told them that each of the parishes was going to have to dig in and contribute to the settlement fund or the Archdiocese would have to declare bankruptcy.
More recently, City Council member Carl Wilson staged a protest outside Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on West 14 Street after he said he learned the archdiocese was planning to sell that church along with the shut down Guardian Angel school building and the long closed girls high school, St. Michael’s Academy. All three fell within parts of the Chelsea neighborhoods represented by Wilson.
But when Straus News queried the Archdiocese about the possibility of a sell off, the Archdiocese said that it was actually hoping to use six buildings as collateral for a loan it wanted to take out to help pay sex abuse victims.
“The Archdiocese of New York intends to petition the New York State Supreme Court for approval to secure a loan collateralized by six Archdiocese properties,” a spokesperson said.
It did not specify which six buildings would be sold, but the presumption is the three buildings that Wilson mentioned, a church and two schools on the west side, were in the deal.
But that creates a guessing game as to which other three churches or schools could be used in the deal. Among rumored targets are the Little Italy church, Most Precious Blood, where the statue of San Gennaro is stored when not on display at the annual San Gennaro festival each September or the Most Holy Redeemer Church, known as the German Cathedral of the Lower East Side which was shut down around Labor Day last year and is only open for special occasions.
The Archdiocese said that Most Precious Blood and Most Holy Redeemer were not among the six.
The former St. Brigid School on East 7th Street in the East Village is already on the block, officially being marketed as a possible luxury condo site. Another vacant church and potential target that is not on the block is the Church of St. Stephen/Our Lady of the Scapular on East 28 Street. But moving that could be complicated because the church is already on the National Registry of Historic Places.
Constantino Brumidi, the artist who painted the fresco that depitcts George Washington rising to the heavens on the interior of the US Capitol in 1865 also has a wide number of murals in the East 28 Street church, 45 in all. The major mural is a Crucifixion scene that is more than 44 feet tall and 20 feet wide.
The Archdiocese has not said which of the six properties it currently owns will be part of the collateral package it is putting together to secure a loan. But the talks for a settlement are apparently still ongoing and the Archdiocese has yet to ask NYS for permission to do the deal. “Petition still not filed as process continues with the Plaintiff’s Liaison Committee and the archdiocese,” said a spokesperson for the Archdiocese.
“Both the Plaintiff’s Liaison Committee (PLC) and the Archdiocese are continuing the process to complete all aspects of this agreement,” said the Archdiocesan spokesperson.