The Diocese under the Roman Catholic Bishop of Santa Rosa will be filing for bankruptcy Monday due to the large number of lawsuits filed against it from people who allege they were sexually abused, Bishop Robert Vasa said Friday, Patch.com reported. The lawsuits came in the wake of a three-year window declared by Gov. Gavin Newsom beginning in 2020 and ending on Dec. 31, 2022, that overruled the normal statute of limitations and opened the floodgates for litigation. According to the Catholic News Agency, Newsom's move allowed for suits to be brought that have gone back up to 75 years. For the Santa Rosa Diocese, the number of suits could be as many as 200, with 115 dating back more than 30 years. "These cases are too numerous to settle individually and so they have accumulated until the closing of the three-year window," Vasa said on Friday in his statement. "Now that the window is closed, we have received notice of at least 160 claims and we have information that perhaps more than 200 claims have been filed in total against the Diocese."
