A new wave of bankruptcies shakes the Catholic Church in California6 24 2024
Six Roman Catholic dioceses in California seek bankruptcy protections after victims of clergy sexual abuse were allowed to seek compensation in civil courts.
The Child Victims Act, approved in 2019, allowed for victims of clergy sexual abuse to seek justice in civil courts in California.
A law crafted after that Act in California, allowed E. Jean Carroll to prove she was the victim of Donald Trump in New York courts.
A new wave of news about bankruptcies in Roman Catholic dioceses of California is sweeping the Internet these days. According to Religion News Service, the new wave involves more than 3,000 cases.
It is not that new cases are emerging at the rate they were back at the height of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, in the aughts. In California, the new wave of bankruptcies in the Catholic Church are the by-product of a major change in the understanding of the reasons behind sexual abuse.
«In 2018, the California Legislature approved AB 218, a bill that lifted the statute of limitations for three years on child sex abuse litigation and allowed survivors to file suits regardless of when the abuse occurred. That three-year “window” for filing cases that otherwise would have been barred closed on December 31, 2022».
AB 2018 is the California Assembly Bill 218, a law also known as The Child Victims Act, approved back in in October 2019. Until 2022, the law allowed people who was sexually assaulted as a minor to file civil lawsuits although the statute of limitations had already expired.
The Child Victims Act inspired the Adult Survivors Act, the law that allowed E. Jean Carroll to sue Donald J. Trump in New York courts back in 2023.
https://www.losangelespress.org/english-edition/a-new-wave-of-bankruptcies-shakes-the-catholic-church-in-california-20240623-8804.html