The diocese and its parishes want abuse litigation against parishes to be put on hold for at least another 90 to 120 days so mediation discussions can progress without the distraction of having to defend against potentially hundreds of lawsuits in state courts.
PHILADELPHIA — When the Taliban gained control of Afghanistan in 2021, Jawad Moradi feared he would be put in prison, or worse.
Five years earlier, he had earned his master of laws degree at Duke University. Because of his U.S. legal education and interaction with colleagues in the United States and elsewhere, he was at risk. And as a member of a minority population that had been targeted by the Taliban, he was even more vulnerable.
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Crossroads Academy, an alternative school for students with challenges, such as chronic truancy or behind in academic development, will move from its present location back to the Ripon High School building.
Kerry McCarthy, school social worker for the Ripon Area School District (RASD), and Crossroads Academy Director Steve Books addressed the board Monday, Feb. 19 about details relating to the move. Crossroads Academy has been located in the First Congregational Church of Ripon on Ransom Street for the last 20 years and now is set to move back to the high school.
Brooks noted there are several reasons for the move.“We [will] have a lot more flexibility now, being on campus, to get kids out of the alternative ed setting if they are able to be in Ripon High School elective courses,” he said. “I currently have six kids taking at least one and as many as four courses at the high school, so it’s changed drastically since I took over two years back, and we have more kids participating in things, which I think is good.”
Brooks added that returning to the main campus would benefit the students in other ways as well. Among them is that the sense of community would be stronger, since many of the off-site students feel isolated and not part of the school body.
Another benefit is that the program could reach out to other students who might need the services of the academy, as well as ease of access to other courses, such as English or social studies. Brooks noted a significant time presently is lost to traveling back and forth between classes.
“Being on campus would allow me to be more of a resource for other teachers as well,” Brooks said.
Just because the academy will be located at the high school, it does not mean it will be integrated into the daily climate there. A separate security entrance is under consideration so that students in the program can enter and exit without going through the office along with all of the other students.
“We are currently looking at a location in the school, in the high school building, and there would have to be a couple of changes that would have to happen,” he said. “Basically, just adding another secure entrance to the building. … It would be the only entrance that the Crossroads kids would use, rather than coming in the main office at the start of the day with all of the other students.”
Brooks added it would give him direct oversight of who is coming and going from the building, and would enable the academy to be a part of the high school as a whole, while keeping it separate.
The move would save the district about $24,000 per year in rental fees, an amount that Brooks said he would like to use to hire another teaching aide for his staff. Crossroads Academy plans to open for full operations this fall at the Ripon High School building.
Another off-site school, the Near-Site Special Education Alternative School, is considering a move as well. RASD uses alternative schools run by CESA 6, Fundamentals and the Oshkosh Area School District, and has eight students who use that service at a cost of $318,722 for tuition and transportation costs of $71,697.
Those eight students range from grades 5 to 9 currently, but will be a grade level higher by the fall semester.
RASD Director of Special Education Becky Morrin addressed the Ripon School Board Monday, Feb. 19 about a possible move from the Oshkosh area to the soon to be vacated Crossroads Academy space at the First Congregational Church in Ripon.
Benefits for the move include shorter commutes, enhancing the ability for students to participate in RASD activities, increasing oversight of the program from the district and creating financial savings.
To move the school back to Ripon would save the district about $58,000 over the current tuition charged by CESA 6 and would necessitate the hiring of two full-time special education teachers and two full-time support staff members.
Rent for the school would remain about the same as what the Crossroads Academy was charged, just more than $20,000, but transportation costs would be slashed by more than 50%, from $71,000 to $31,000.
Along with cost savings for transportation, it would be easier for parents to pick up sick children and for doctor’s appointments, due to the school being in Ripon and not Oshkosh.
“We want to put this program a little closer to our school courses so we are able to provide staff, school psychologist support, social worker support, more support from myself, who will help these students with their learning and their ultimate transition back to their home building,” Morrin said.
This was not an action item for the School Board, but rather a briefing of intent by Morrin and her staff as to what they want to accomplish. Once the Crossroads Academy vacates its location at the First Congregational Church, the new school, whose name has not been released as yet, would be able to settle in time for the fall semester. The board will consider approving the move at a later meeting.
The Catholic Church’s shrinking physical presence in Western New York will get even smaller when the Buffalo Diocese sells off valuable real estate to help settle sex abuse claims.
The diocese, which four years ago today filed for Chapter 11 protection, has identified 22 properties, including its longtime headquarters, it may sell to generate funds toward a settlement of the roughly 900 claims in federal bankruptcy court.
But aside from that development, there’s little indication the diocese is close to reaching a deal with the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, which represents about 900 people who said they were sexually abused as children by Catholic priests or other diocese employees.
The bankruptcy case, filed Feb. 28, 2020, already has taken longer to resolve than any other diocese reorganization except for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s, which took nearly five years.
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While Buffalo Diocese officials and an attorney for the creditors committee declined to comment on their mediated settlement talks, abuse victims expressed dismay over the pace of negotiations.
“They’re nowhere,” said Kevin Brun, whose 2019 lawsuit alleging the Rev. Arthur Smith molested him when he was a teenager has been stalled in state court due to the bankruptcy. “I’ve been reflecting on how long this bankruptcy process is taking, and my frustration level, it can’t be measured. And I’m sure other survivors – in fact I know other survivors who I’ve spoken to that are extremely frustrated as well.”
The diocese has wracked up nearly $14 million in legal bills, while those who filed abuse claims in bankruptcy court have yet to see a penny.
“I don’t see where the sense of urgency or where the incentive is for these bankruptcy attorneys to settle these cases. I mean, they’re getting paid right along, regardless of what the final outcome is,” said Brun, who also has a claim in the diocese bankruptcy case. “I just don’t think they’re pushing hard enough or negotiating strong enough to bring this to fruition.”
Michael F. Whalen Jr. said he was hoping Chief Judge Carl L. Bucki of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Western District of New York will soon allow at least some Child Victims Act lawsuits to proceed in state court, as a prod for negotiations to move forward.
Bucki decided in January to keep Child Victims Act lawsuits against Catholic parishes and schools on hold until at least April 15.
“It’s just too long. Too many people are passing away,” said Whalen, whose news conference in 2018 alleging abuse by the Rev. Norbert Orsolits led to the unraveling of the diocese’s historical cover-up of clergy sex abuse cases. “I feel sorry for the survivors that have passed and haven’t see closure.”
The diocese’s announcement in court papers last October that it would offer at least $100 million toward a settlement elicited mostly scoffs – both from abuse victims who said it was a paltry amount to address their pain and suffering and from parishioners furious over having to pay for church leadership’s mishandling of abusive clergy.
Properties will be sold
To get there, the diocese will have to sell at least some of its property.
Already on the market is the former Christ the King Seminary, a sprawling campus of 18 buildings on 117 acres in the Town of Aurora, with an asking price of $5.3 million.
The Buffalo Diocese has set the price at $5.3 million for a bucolic property in the Town of Aurora where it used to have men trained to become priests.
Three potential buyers for the property emerged in 2020 after the seminary closed. One was the Masonic Care Community, which was prepared to make a cash offer, according to a trustee. The diocese put off plans for the sale at the time due to demands of the Chapter 11 process. The Masonic Care Community was still interested in the property but also was busy with other projects at the moment, said the trustee, Christopher Hough.
Other diocese properties have yet to be listed but have been named in court papers as likely targets for sales. The most prominent is the Catholic Center, the diocese’s longtime headquarters at 785 and 795 Main St. The five-story former home of the Courier Express newspaper was built in 1929 and has an estimated full market value of $6.7 million, according to City of Buffalo property records.
Also on the list of properties to be marketed: three Newman Centers located near university or college campuses in Buffalo, Amherst, and Alfred; three priest retirement homes; a home for expectant mothers and mothers with newborns; a center for families of patients being treated at nearby hospitals; and a large office building in Lackawanna that houses the administrative operations of Our Lady of Victory Charities. About 30 retired priests live in the three homes in Tonawanda, Depew and Lackawanna.
Appraisals were conducted last week of the UB Newman Center at 495 Skinnersville Road in Amherst and a condominium on Bristol Drive that’s home to the Rev. Paul D. Seil, UB Newman Center director, Seil said in a weekly newsletter posting on Sunday.
“While I have been informed numerous times that the condo will be sold (to help fund the settlement to the victims of clergy abuse and the cover-up), that does not mean the same for the Newman Center!” Seil said in the newsletter. He declined to comment further on Tuesday.
Construction of the UB Newman Center was completed in 2010 at a cost of $2.7 million.
Sales of the properties would further reduce the local Catholic Church’s vast Western New York real estate empire, which has shrunk dramatically over the past 15 years as dozens of churches and elementary schools closed due to declining church attendance and school enrollments and fewer priests.
Through a diocese spokesman, Bishop Michael W. Fisher declined requests to be interviewed for this story. In a video posted Tuesday to the diocese website, he acknowledged that Western New York Catholics “must address the realization that we have more parishes than we need for our Catholic population.”
“The reality is buildings are closing,” said Fisher, “but the church, the people of God, will continue.”
Most recently, All Saints Catholic Church in Buffalo’s Riverside neighborhood and St. Andrew Church and school in the Town of Tonawanda were slated to be closed later this year and will likely be put on the market. While those properties are owned by parishes, which are separate non-profit corporations, their sales ultimately will benefit a settlement trust because the parishes owed the diocese hundreds of thousands of dollars in “assessments,” a regular diocesan tax on weekly offertory collections.
But Fisher also said in his video that the recent closures “are not a direct result of our ongoing Chapter 11 proceedings” and instead were connected to “wider societal trends that span long before our recent problems,” such as migration of local Catholics to other parts of the country, smaller families and people identifying as spiritual but not religious.
The diocese and parishes have discussed additional assessments of all parishes as part of funding a settlement but “no actions have been taken at this time and cannot be taken until the bankruptcy court renders its decision,” he said.
The Buffalo Diocese has asked a state court to stop the public release of documents subpoenaed by the State Attorney General’s Office during its investigation into the diocese’s handling of childhood sex abuse allegations against clergy.
Bucki in January allowed the diocese to hire Hanna Commercial Real Estate as real estate broker for the 22 properties.
“We have the big list, but we’re not authorized to market any of them,” except for the seminary, said William K. Heussler, licensed associate real estate broker with Hanna.
Heussler said his office will be directed by the court about what properties to list and when.
“I don’t know procedurally what they do and how they deem those ready to sell,” he added.
The diocese is required under bankruptcy proceedings to monetize its assets for the purposes of paying its creditors, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it must sell all properties.
In some instances, a loan may be taken against the value of a property, with the loan proceeds used to pay into a settlement trust.
The 22 properties on the diocese’s revised list do not include five Catholic high school buildings that were part of previous diocese property lists.
Bishop Timon-St. Jude High School in South Buffalo, St. Mary’s High School in Lancaster, Cardinal O’Hara High School in the Town of Tonawanda, Notre Dame High School in Batavia and the former DeSales High School in Lockport, now used as an elementary school, are all owned by the diocese. The schools have operated independently of the diocese for many years, but never took ownership of the buildings.
Instead, they lease the space long term for a nominal fee, with the understanding that they pay for property maintenance, renovations, and upgrades.
Royse City ISD trustees last Friday announced that they have unanimously approved Thompson & Horton LLP to lead the upcoming search for a new leader to fill the void left by the retirement in December of longtime superintendent Kevin Worthy.
According to district officials, consultants Dr. Mike Moses, Dr. Curtis Culwell and David Thompson will assist RCISD in the development of a timeline, application process and solicitation of input from staff, parents and the community.
Trustees interviewed three superintendent search firms before giving the go-ahead to bring Thompson & Horton on board.
“On behalf of the School Board, we are excited and eager to work with Thompson & Horton on this important process,” said Scott Muckensturm, who serves as president of the Board. “As proven leaders in education across the state, they bring a wealth of experience in cultivating a process to make the selection of a school superintendent an authentic and successful one.
“We look forward to learning what matters most to parents, staff and the community.”
Worthy retired in December after more than 12 years in the role as superintendent for RCISD and 31 years in education but his legacy will remain moving forward with the district’s second high school scheduled to open in August of 2027 as Kevin Worthy Fate High School
Thompson is an attorney with Thompson & Horton LLP and is a former associate executive director for the Texas Association of School Boards and served as general counsel for the Texas Education Agency.
Moses previously served as the Texas Commissioner of Education from 1995 to 1999, was deputy chancellor and professor of educational administration for the Texas Tech University System from 1999 to 2000 and superintendent for Dallas ISD from 2000 to 2004.
Moses has served as superintendent of schools in four districts in Texas including a small, mid-size and large district.
Culwell has been a superintendent in three Texas school districts, including Garland ISD. He has also served as the first executive director for the Texas School Alliance and he currently is a member of the UIL state executive committee.
District officials say they will issue updates on the timeline and input opportunities and updates will be provided to staff, parents and the community along the way.
The district will also accept feedback directly to the school board anytime at boardtrustee@rcisd.org.