San Francisco archdiocese to pay $395m to settle over 500 child sexual abuse claims

The San Francisco Catholic archdiocese has agreed to pay $395m to settle more than 500 lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by church officials, plaintiffs’ attorneys said Monday. Salvatore Cordileone, the San Francisco archbishop, will have to write an apology letter to each survivor as part of the settlement. The settlement also requires the archdiocese to implement a series of child protection and transparency reforms, including creating a list of clergy accused of abuse, said Jeff Anderson, an attorney representing dozens of child sexual abuse victims. The settlement comes three years after the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy and will cover approximately 530 survivors of child sexual abuse, Anderson said. It is the latest agreement over clergy sexual abuse claims. In 2024, the archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to a record $880m settlement. Several archdioceses in California filed for bankruptcy after facing hundreds of lawsuits brought under a California law approved in 2019 that allowed decades-old claims to be filed by 31 December 2022. Cordileone said in a statement that he believes the settlement provides “a path toward fair compensation for survivors who have borne the weight of this abuse for a lifetime”. “The hope is that this proposal will allow us collectively to move forward,” he said. …