A newly filed sworn statement in the Diocese of Burlington's bankruptcy case claims a former bishop floated a plan to move church money out of reach of abuse judgments. The allegation adds a new wrinkle to an already tense fight over roughly $500 million in parish property, but it does not change whether survivors connected to the diocese can still bring a claim.
Reviewed by Abuse Justice Center · Updated 2026-07-16
A diocese's own bank account can run dry long before every survivor connected to it has been paid, which is exactly why fights over separate parish assets matter.
A woman who interviewed in 2020 for the chief financial officer job at the Diocese of Burlington has filed a sworn declaration in the diocese's ongoing bankruptcy case describing an exchange she says troubled her from the start. According to her statement, the bishop leading the diocese at the time raised the abuse lawsuits it was facing and asked whether she would help arrange the diocese's paperwork in a way that would leave nothing for survivors to collect if those cases were lost.
She says another senior diocesan official present at the meeting backed up the idea, framing it as a way to protect current parishioners from having to fund a legal loss. In her account, the exchange left her rattled enough that she remembers it in detail six years later. The diocese's response, relayed through the bishop involved, was that the idea amounted to ordinary asset protection planning and was not improper, even as the diocese has continued paying settlements to survivors.
The Diocese of Burlington sought Chapter 11 protection back in the fall of 2024, capping roughly two decades of settling clergy misconduct claims one at a time. By its own accounting, it had already paid out about $34.5 million to resolve 67 of those cases before the filing, and its remaining assets had shrunk to somewhere around $35 million. With 119 additional abuse claims still pending, some reaching back to 1950, the diocese argued it could no longer manage that many individual lawsuits and settlements outside of a court-supervised process.
Bankruptcy does not erase those 119 claims. It folds them into a single federal proceeding where a committee, in this case representing more than 100 claimants, negotiates on survivors' behalf over how much money is actually available and how it should be divided. That is a very different process from a jury trial, but it is still a path to compensation, not a dead end.
The claimants' committee's real target isn't the diocese's remaining $35 million. It is closer to $500 million in land, buildings, and other property spread across nearly 70 local parishes, which a previous bishop moved into individual parish trusts back in 2006. Those trusts restrict how the property can be used, generally limiting it to religious, charitable, or educational purposes rather than paying legal judgments.
Claimants argue that structure was designed, whether or not that was the stated intent at the time, to put diocesan wealth out of reach of exactly the kind of lawsuits now working through bankruptcy court. The diocese disputes how far creditors can reach into parish-level trusts. A federal bankruptcy judge is expected to weigh in later this year, and that ruling will do far more to determine how much money survivors actually see than any single deposition.
An accusation that church leadership discussed shielding assets is a serious allegation about how a diocese managed its money, but it is a separate legal question from whether an individual survivor has a valid abuse claim. Claims keep moving through the bankruptcy process regardless of how that dispute is ultimately resolved.
In practice, a bankruptcy filing usually turns an abuse claim into what's called a proof of claim, filed with the court by a specific deadline known as a bar date. Missing that deadline can close off compensation just as permanently as missing an ordinary filing deadline would in civil court, so it is worth talking to an attorney promptly rather than waiting to see how the asset dispute plays out. A free, confidential conversation can sort out where your situation stands and what paperwork, if any, still needs to be filed.
Bankruptcy filings, asset disputes, and allegations like this one can make it sound like the money, and your options, have already disappeared. Here's what actually still applies.
Abuse Justice Center is a lawyer-matching and advocacy service, not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice. Matching and consultations are free, and network attorneys work on contingency. Need support now? The RAINN hotline is 800-656-4673, 24/7.
No. It is an accusation contained in one sworn court filing, not a finding by a judge. The bankruptcy court will ultimately decide how much of the diocese's and its parishes' property is available to pay claims.
Generally, yes. Bankruptcy reorganizes how and when survivors are paid, folding individual claims into a single court process, but it is designed to result in payments, not to erase valid claims.
The age of a claim by itself usually is not a bar to filing in a bankruptcy case. An attorney can check the specific deadline that applies and help make sure paperwork is filed correctly.
Instead of an individual trial, a bankruptcy claim goes through a court-supervised process with a claims deadline and a set method for dividing available funds among everyone with a valid claim.