The Harrisburg Diocese on Wednesday became the latest member of the worldwide Catholic Church to face financial reckoning for misdeeds involving child sexual abuse.

Speaking before members of the media, Bishop Ronald Gainer announced that 15-county Harrisburg Diocese filed for Chapter 11 protection. He explained the reasoning for the filing.

“Our current financial situation is unsustainable going forward,” Gainer said.

"This is the correct path forward for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg,” he said.

The filing comes two years after a statewide grand jury investigation found that priests in the diocese and five others in Pennsylvania had sexually molested generations of minors.

The 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury, which was led by Attorney General Josh Shapiro, also found that church leaders had covered up the crimes.

The Harrisburg diocese becomes the first Catholic diocese in Pennsylvania to file for bankruptcy. Last fall, an attorney representing the Catholic diocese in Pittsburgh raised the possibility of a bankruptcy filing, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Bankruptcy means that scores of victims who are time-barred from the legal process because they passed the statute of limitations are now eligible to seek compensation in a bankruptcy settlement. Almost all the abuse cases documented by the grand jury investigation fell out of statute.

Harrisburg last year paid out $12 million in settlements with more than 100 survivors as part of their victims compensation fund. The average payout to those accepting the Harrisburg diocese’s offers was about $114,000. An attorney who represented clergy sex abuse survivors described the Harrisburg diocese’s settlements as “a little light.”

Victims who already settled with the Harrisburg diocese through its victims compensation fund are barred from taking additional legal action against the diocese.

In filing for Chapter 11 protection, Harrisburg joins the ranks of about two dozen Catholic dioceses across the country that have sought bankruptcy protection amid the clergy sex abuse scandal.

Dioceses have widely opted for bankruptcy protection amid crushing financial strains from legal action, including the latest, the Diocese of Rochester in New York, which has seen a deluge of lawsuits after New York last year enacted wide reforms to statute of limitations. The new law allows victims with claims dating back decades to seek legal action.

Harrisburg, along with the other seven dioceses in the state (including the Philadelphia Archdiocese) face looming changes with regards to state law.

Gov. Tom Wolf and state lawmakers last year approved measures to reform child sex crime laws, including a measure that abolishes criminal statutes for child sex crimes going forward.

The new law gives future victims of child sexual abuse more time to file lawsuits and to end time limits for police to file criminal charges. Victims also have more time to file lawsuits under the law; they can puruse civil claims up to age 55, as opposed to age 30 previously.

Two companion pieces of legislation invalidates secrecy agreements that keep child sexual abuse victims from talking to investigators. The other increases and clarifies penalties for people who are required to report suspected child abuse but fail to do so.

A separate measure would revive the expired statute of limitations, but it is tied to a constitutional amendment. The amendment, if approved, would allow victims to pursue claims in court even if they are well beyond the statute of limitations. But amending the state constitution is a lengthy process.

Lawmakers must approve a constitutional amendment in two consecutive sessions, so the General Assembly would have to pass the amendment again in the 2021-22 session. Then it would go to voters for approval. The earliest it could appear on a ballot is 2021.

However, the November election could potentially factor into the mix. Pennsylvania’s General Assembly could look much different after the election.

All the seats in the state House - and half the seats in the Senate - are on the ballot in the November election. Now under Republican control, the Legislature could see a major change to its political makeup come November. Across the country, reforms to child sex crime laws, in particular statute of limitations, have come about after political shifts in statehouses. New Jersey and New York, for instance, have more recently gone under Democratic control, an outcome that have led to the reform of child sex crime laws.

Additionally, Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, long an ally of Catholic Church interests, has announced his retirement. House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, also said he’s not seeking re-election.

The clergy sex abuse scandal has over the years dealt a financial blow to Catholic dioceses across the country, forcing scores of them to shutter schools and even churches. The Associated Press has estimated that the deluge of suits nationwide against Catholic dioceses could surpass anything the nation’s clergy sexual abuse crisis has seen before, with potentially more than 5,000 new cases and payouts topping $4 billion.

In December, the Associated Press reported that Pennsylvania’s Catholic dioceses have paid nearly $84 million to 564 victims of sexual abuse, a number that’s expected to grow.

The Harrisburg Diocese in December was named in a lawsuit in New Jersey, which also recently reformed its statute of limitations. To date, the average payout across all seven dioceses has exceeded $148,000.

Two members of a Dauphin County family of five sisters who were sexually abused as children by a trusted family priest are seeking to bring to court the two Catholic dioceses at the heart of their abuse, including the Harrisburg Diocese.

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