The San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese agreed Monday to pay $395 million to settle more than 500 lawsuits brought by survivors of child sexual abuse by church officials, plaintiffs’ attorneys announced. The deal, which covers approximately 530 individuals, requires Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone to write a personal apology letter to each survivor.
Jeff Anderson, an attorney representing dozens of the survivors, said the settlement also requires the archdiocese to implement 14 specific child protection and transparency reforms. Those include maintaining and making public a comprehensive, up-to-date list of all clergy accused of abuse, detailing the allegations and investigation outcomes. The archdiocese is also barred from imposing confidentiality agreements that would silence survivors, Anderson said.
“I’ve been working with survivors for decades and I’ve never heard of anything quite as significant, as rigorous, as robust as what is being required of the archdiocese of San Francisco,” Anderson said during a news conference.
Cordileone said in a statement that the agreement provides “a path toward fair compensation for survivors who have borne the weight of this abuse for a lifetime.” He added, “The hope is that this proposal will allow us collectively to move forward. We accept full responsibility for what happened, and I sincerely apologize to all those who have been harmed.”
Margie O’Driscoll, who sued the archdiocese alleging she was sexually abused by a priest nearly 50 years ago while a student at Marin Catholic High School, said the settlement was hard-fought. “I, like every survivor, have carried this pain and shame along like a ball and chain for a very, very long time,” O’Driscoll said. “Ashamed and confused about what happened, scorned by the archdiocese, and sometimes not even believed by family and friends, and I think today shame is gonna change sides.”
The settlement comes three years after the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection. The archdiocese was among several in California that faced hundreds of lawsuits under a state law enacted in 2019 that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse claims, allowing decades-old cases to be filed through the end of 2022.
The San Francisco agreement adds to a growing list of large financial settlements by U.S. Catholic dioceses. MSI previously reported that the Diocese of Camden in New Jersey agreed to pay $180 million in a clergy sexual abuse settlement announced in February. In 2024, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to a record $880 million settlement.
Anderson said a committee of survivors who spent thousands of hours negotiating with Cordileone over the last three years is empowered to establish protocols for distributing the settlement funds. Every survivor will be given the opportunity to submit their account of abuse to an allocator hired by the committee, who will determine “an equitable distribution based on the unique circumstances of that survival,” Anderson said.
In addition to the monetary payment, the archdiocese agreed to a series of demands beyond the 14 reforms, including the requirement that Cordileone personally write to each survivor. Anderson described the non-monetary terms as unusually rigorous, noting they place ongoing responsibility on church officials rather than on survivors.