The Archdiocese of New York wants to take out a $100 million mortgage on one of its prized real estate possessions to fund a compensation program for victims of clergy sexual abuse.

The petition for a mortgage, which was filed in New York State Supreme Court on Monday, will be on the land the archdiocese owns underneath the luxury Lotte New York Palace Hotel and a semicircle of landmark 19th-century mansions known as the Villard Houses, on Madison Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets.

Directly across Madison Avenue from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the land was acquired by the archdiocese in the decades after World War II. In the 1970s, the archdiocese entered into a 99-year ground lease with the developer Harry Helmsley that allowed him to build a 54-story hotel on the property and rent the underlying land for $1 million a year.

The hotel and leasehold were purchased in 1993 by the royal family of Brunei, then sold to a private equity fund, and then to the current owner, Lotte, in 2015. The archdiocese did not say how much rent it receives for the underlying land.