Plaintiffs seek sex abuse fund of $66 million.

Byline: Jeff Wright The Register-Guard

A committee representing alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse submitted a plan Monday that it says would allow the Archdiocese of Portland to settle all sexual abuse claims without resorting to selling any parish or school property.

But the plan, filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Portland, ups the ante in terms of how much money the archdiocese would make available to settle the legal claims against it.

The archdiocese already has offered $42 million. But the Tort Claimants Committee on Monday said a trust fund for alleged victims should begin at $66 million. The extra funds would be derived from the value of archdiocese claims against its insurance companies and dividend distributions from Oregon Catholic Press.

The committee's plan also proposes placing into the fund all trust deeds to the archdiocese's real property - to allow for foreclosure should the funds be depleted.

Catholic leaders' initial response to the claimant committee's plan was tepid.

"We all hope this appeal will go through and be limited to the $42 million," said the Rev. Dan Reynolds, parish priest at St. Mark Catholic Church in west Eugene. "But if it's moving up to $60 million-something, that's going to make it harder for the archdiocese to carry out its mission. I don't know where the next $20 million is going to come from."

Bud Bunce, archdiocese spokesman in Portland, said it appears the claimants did not give full consideration to the archdiocese's proposal.

"We submitted our plan and they basically decided they didn't like it and came up with their own," he said.

Monday's filing comes six weeks after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Perris ruled that church property and real estate is owned by the archdiocese, not by individual parishes as the archdiocese had argued.

Perris also rejected the archdiocese's claim that applying federal law instead of church law to the bankruptcy issue violates the church's First Amendment rights to religious freedom.

The archdiocese, representing 124 parishes across West- ern Oregon, was the first in the nation to declare bankruptcy when it filed for protection in July 2004, just before the scheduled start of jury trials for alleged victims seeking more than $155 million in damages.

About 110 sex abuse claims are still pending against the archdiocese, which has estimated its liability on those claims at about $33 million. But the claimants say in their filing that many of the unsettled claims could end up going to trial, where the historical average of jury awards to victims exceeds $2 million.

In their filing, the claimants contend that the archdiocese has assets exceeding $560 million - more than $142 million in cash and investments, plus properties that had a combined assessed value of more than $400 million three years ago and which undoubtedly have appreciated since then.

The archdiocese has said its net worth is closer to $19 million.

The claimants contend that the archdiocese could place $42 million into the trust fund and still have $100 million in cash and investments, and could sell nonessential properties valued at $50 million. In all, the archdiocese could raise more than $110 million for payment of claims without having to sell any church, school or cemetery property, the committee contends.

The archdiocese's assets include 12 churches, three schools, a cemetery and miscellaneous property in Lane County with a total assessed value of more than $41 million in 2004.