The Catholic Diocese of Wilmington paid $15.8 million in fees and expenses to lawyers, financial advisers and other professionals involved in its 2011 bankruptcy, according to its final report filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court this week, DelawareOnline.com reported yesterday. As other dioceses have done around the nation, the Diocese of Wilmington sought chapter 11 protection in 2009 after a flood of civil lawsuits were filed by survivors of clergy sexual abuse under provisions of Delaware's 2007 Child Victim's Act. The 2007 law opened a two-year window for child sexual abuse cases that would otherwise have been barred by the statute of limitations. The diocese emerged from bankruptcy in 2011, paying $77.4 million into a trust fund to resolve all claims by abuse survivors and another $10 million into a pension fund for lay employees that was found to be underfunded during financial disclosures.
