The Archdiocese of New York has agreed to an $800 million settlement with attorneys representing approximately 1,300 people who say they were sexually abused by clergy, closing out a legal battle that has stretched on for more than seven years. Archbishop Ronald Hicks confirmed the agreement to clergy in an email sent Saturday, after attorneys for the survivors first announced the deal.

The settlement is not yet final — both sides are scheduled to formally sign the agreement during the week of November 6. If it goes through as expected, it will rank as the second-largest settlement ever reached between a U.S. Catholic archdiocese and abuse survivors, trailing only the Archdiocese of Los Angeles's $880 million deal in 2024 with roughly 1,000 victims, on top of $740 million it had already paid out previously.

Years of lawsuits, one landmark deal

The claims stem from New York's 2019 Child Victims Act, which opened a window allowing survivors of childhood sexual abuse to sue their abusers and the institutions that shielded them, regardless of when the abuse occurred, up until the survivor turned 55. People already past that age when the law passed had until August 2021 to file suit. The flood of claims that followed pushed the New York Archdiocese — which covers the Bronx, Manhattan, Staten Island and seven counties north of the city, encompassing roughly 300 churches, more than 150 parochial schools and 2.5 million Catholics — toward the brink of bankruptcy, according to attorneys involved in the negotiations.

A settlement framework was first reached back in May, but it required every one of the roughly 1,300 claimants to sign off before it could move forward, a process that took another five months to complete.

"THIS IS AN EXTRAORDINARY ACHIEVEMENT FOR THE SURVIVORS," said attorney Trusha Goffe, part of the legal team led by Jeff Anderson, who called the deal "a powerful moment in the pursuit of justice."

In his message to clergy, Archbishop Hicks wrote that the archdiocese is "on the verge of being able to, please God, bring some measure of healing and reconciliation to all victim-survivors," and instructed parish leaders to tell concerned parishioners that "much progress has been made."

The New York settlement follows a string of similar reckonings across the country this year: the Archdiocese of San Francisco agreed in June to pay $395 million over roughly 500 lawsuits, while the Archdiocese of New Orleans had a $230 million settlement approved by a federal judge in December 2025. Taken together, the deals represent billions of dollars in payouts by the American Catholic Church as decades-old abuse claims continue working through the courts under state lookback laws.

Once signed, the New York settlement would funnel the $800 million into a compensation trust for survivors while formally closing one of the largest single blocs of clergy abuse litigation the archdiocese has faced. Lawyers for the survivors say the agreement also preserves their ability to separately pursue the Church's insurers for additional compensation.