El Paso Catholic Diocese files for bankruptcy reorganization, citing ‘astronomical’ potential judgments in priest sex abuse cases
The El Paso Catholic Diocese, faced with potential “astronomical” judgments in a dozen lawsuits alleging clergy sexual abuse, filed for bankruptcy reorganization Friday.
The 12 lawsuits involving 18 plaintiffs, filed between 2022 and 2025 in Las Cruces, allege sexual abuse by priests at a number of New Mexico parishes between 1956 and early 1982, when southern New Mexico was part of the El Paso diocese.
A 59-year-old Las Cruces man who is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits said the El Paso diocese is using the bankruptcy process to evade accountability
“Today, just like in the past, the diocese is only doing what is best for them. By filing for bankruptcy, they have removed the opportunity for us to hold them accountable for their failures in a court of law. Bankruptcy brings no justice to the victims, only blanket protection to the diocese,” Isaac Melendrez Jr. said in a statement to El Paso Matters.
Another attorney representing survivors, Wouter Zwart of Albuquerque, said the bankruptcy filing was “retraumatizing” for some. Melendrez is among his clients.
“And I think the bankruptcy filing feels like another delay tactic, even if there’s light at the end of the road of this process,” Zwart said, saying some pending diocesan bankruptcy reorganizations are in their third or fourth year.
El Paso Catholics reacted with a mixture of sadness and anger at the latest impact of one of the church’s horrific chapters.
https://elpasomatters.org/2026/03/06/el-...-lawsuits/
The El Paso Catholic Diocese, faced with potential “astronomical” judgments in a dozen lawsuits alleging clergy sexual abuse, filed for bankruptcy reorganization Friday.
The 12 lawsuits involving 18 plaintiffs, filed between 2022 and 2025 in Las Cruces, allege sexual abuse by priests at a number of New Mexico parishes between 1956 and early 1982, when southern New Mexico was part of the El Paso diocese.
A 59-year-old Las Cruces man who is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits said the El Paso diocese is using the bankruptcy process to evade accountability
“Today, just like in the past, the diocese is only doing what is best for them. By filing for bankruptcy, they have removed the opportunity for us to hold them accountable for their failures in a court of law. Bankruptcy brings no justice to the victims, only blanket protection to the diocese,” Isaac Melendrez Jr. said in a statement to El Paso Matters.
Another attorney representing survivors, Wouter Zwart of Albuquerque, said the bankruptcy filing was “retraumatizing” for some. Melendrez is among his clients.
“And I think the bankruptcy filing feels like another delay tactic, even if there’s light at the end of the road of this process,” Zwart said, saying some pending diocesan bankruptcy reorganizations are in their third or fourth year.
El Paso Catholics reacted with a mixture of sadness and anger at the latest impact of one of the church’s horrific chapters.
https://elpasomatters.org/2026/03/06/el-...-lawsuits/
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"
