SAN DIEGO — The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego is considering filing for bankruptcy.
This comes after AB218, the “lookback law,” lifted the statute of limitations and gave Californians 3 years to file a sexual abuse claim against schools, sports groups, and religious institutions or churches. Now the church is facing claims that date back to the 1940s.
The Catholic Diocese of San Diego says they would have to pay $550 million if they settled the 400 sex abuse claims they’ve received in the last three years.
Dorothy Small, a survivor of sexual abuse from her priest in Northern California, shared from her home, "My faith was the glue that held me together."
The Catholic Church settled Dorothy’s case for $200,000.
Small says the money pales in comparison to the pain she’s navigating. "They violated the most deeply intimate space: rape of the spirit, rape of the soul, rape of the heart," Small said.
When Small found out the Catholic Diocese of San Diego was thinking of filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, she shook her head.
"It's just a diversion tactic and a defensive posture to protect the institution from a loss of funds," she said.
Kevin Eckery with the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego says since AB218, they've received around 400 lawsuits. He says most were from survivors who say their abuse occurred between the 1940s and 1970s.
"It's been close to 30 years since the last time there was a claim against a priest in San Diego," Eckery said.
This isn't the first time the diocese considered bankruptcy.
In 2007, the church aimed to file for bankruptcy when they settled 144 sexual abuse claims for $198 million dollars.
The average payout was $1.4 million.
Eckery said, "Based on the same amount of money, without inflation, it would be over $550 million. And frankly, we don't have that kind of money. We owe a duty to survivors, period. But the fact is we only have so many resources. How those resources are divided up and how those resources are used to both help survivors and maintain key ministries of the diocese remains to be seen."
“It's really just a matter of transparency. We just want people to know what the situation is," he said.
Irwin Zalkin is an attorney representing abuse survivors. Zalkin said of the bankruptcy possibility announcement, "I don't think they understand the impact that has on survivors." He says his office is filing a new lawsuit because they believe the diocese is trying not to pay victims.
"They tried to make that argument in the bankruptcy in 2007 - which wasn't going their way. And now they're going to do it again. That's not transparent," Zalkin said.
WATCH RELATED: Lawsuits filed against Catholic Diocese of San Diego on behalf of alleged sex assault victims (Jan. 2020).