Vermont Catholic bankruptcy case may open to more accusers of clergy sexual abuse
A year after filing for bankruptcy under the weight of 31 unresolved clergy misconduct lawsuits, the Vermont Roman Catholic Diocese is seeing its number of accusers rise nearly fourfold.
The updated total of 119 current claimants includes the initial 31 whose unresolved lawsuits spurred the bankruptcy filing. The new figure is almost double that of an earlier 67 accusers who settled abuse cases before the diocese sought Chapter 11 protection.
A year ago, the church said its assets had been reduced by half, to about $35 million. Since then, it has spent about $1.5 million — almost 5% of its remaining money — on legal bills, court records show.
On Tuesday, seven speakers told the judge of suffering depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, disassociation and problems with intimacy, sleeping and alcohol and drug use.
“Up to a year ago, I had planned to take my shame and humiliation to the grave,” said a Montpelier man identified as “speaker 4.”
Then he and others came forward upon the church’s bankruptcy filing.
“If the priests had been held accountable,” another speaker said, “we could have avoided all the pain.”
https://vtdigger.org/2025/10/01/vermont-...ual-abuse/
A year after filing for bankruptcy under the weight of 31 unresolved clergy misconduct lawsuits, the Vermont Roman Catholic Diocese is seeing its number of accusers rise nearly fourfold.
The updated total of 119 current claimants includes the initial 31 whose unresolved lawsuits spurred the bankruptcy filing. The new figure is almost double that of an earlier 67 accusers who settled abuse cases before the diocese sought Chapter 11 protection.
A year ago, the church said its assets had been reduced by half, to about $35 million. Since then, it has spent about $1.5 million — almost 5% of its remaining money — on legal bills, court records show.
On Tuesday, seven speakers told the judge of suffering depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, disassociation and problems with intimacy, sleeping and alcohol and drug use.
“Up to a year ago, I had planned to take my shame and humiliation to the grave,” said a Montpelier man identified as “speaker 4.”
Then he and others came forward upon the church’s bankruptcy filing.
“If the priests had been held accountable,” another speaker said, “we could have avoided all the pain.”
https://vtdigger.org/2025/10/01/vermont-...ual-abuse/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
