Spokane Diocese Bankruptcy

Catholic parishes in Eastern Washington have asked that payments to bankruptcy lawyers be suspended or at least held down until the clergy sex abuse case is settled. With legal fees running in excess of $325,000 a month draining the cash reserves of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane, parish members worry that the diocese could run out of money before the case is resolved.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane now says that it overstated the number of alleged sexual abuse victims who haven't filed lawsuits, a disclosure that could undermine the validity of a key creditors' committee. When the diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last December, it did so with the caveat that the more than 60 people who had filed lawsuits weren't the only victims of pedophile priests.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane is spending in excess of $325,000 a month to pay bankruptcy lawyers and fund operating costs, a burn rate so taxing that it has prompted calls to hurry up – or else. The 58 creditors in the lawsuits that prompted the bankruptcy who allege they were sexually abused by priests, want the bankruptcy case put on a fast track to preserve the cash for settlement payouts.

A woman in Anchorage, Alaska, received a $1 million settlement this week for the alleged childhood abuse she suffered at the hands of a Jesuit priest now retired in Spokane. Elsie Boudreau was first molested in the late 1970s by the Rev. James Poole when she was a 10-year-old in Nome, according to the lawsuit filed in Alaska a year ago against the priest, the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, the Alaska Jesuits and the Diocese of Fairbanks.

The Catholic Diocese of Spokane lost a bankruptcy court fight to disband a committee representing victims of clergy sex abuse. Fearful that the Chapter 11 case will cost millions in lawyer fees, the diocese asked U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Patricia Williams to consider whether she had jurisdiction to dissolve one of the two creditors' committees appointed by the U.S. Trustee's office.

BOTHELL, Wash. – A Roman Catholic priest who stunned his parishioners at St. Brendan Church when he told them he was sexually abused as a boy is resigning from the priesthood and may write a book about his experience. The Rev. Lawrence Minder, 44, said he has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from his abuse, which he says occurred when he was in seminary as a teenager. Counselors at an Arizona treatment facility told him recently he needed to separate from the priesthood to work through the issues underlying the disorder.

More than two dozen plaintiffs who were allegedly abused as minors by Patrick O'Donnell, a former priest in the Spokane Diocese, are now suing the order of priests that ran the seminary where O'Donnell was trained for the priesthood. The Associated Sulpicians of the United States has been named as the defendant in two lawsuits claiming that officials from the order didn't do enough to protect children from O'Donnell. Those suits also allege that the Sulpicians neglected to discuss O'Donnell's pedophilia with the Diocese of Spokane, where O'Donnell was ordained in 1971. Instead, the seminary recommended him as "good priestly material."

A Spokane woman has filed a bankruptcy court claim alleging that a Roman Catholic priest in Spokane leveraged his influence as counselor and spiritual adviser into a sexual relationship that ended about 20 years ago. The claim by Joan Healy-Hartill is reportedly in excess of $10,000 to reimburse her for counseling expenses. It is among the few formal claims alleged victims of sexual abuse have filed in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case of the Spokane Catholic Diocese.