The Freedom From Religion Foundation is calling attention to yet another staggering settlement involving sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.
The Archdiocese of New York has agreed to an $800 million settlement with approximately 1,300 survivors who say they were sexually abused by clergy. The agreement, announced over the weekend, would be the second-largest settlement involving a Catholic archdiocese in U.S. history. It underscores the devastating consequences of decades of institutional secrecy, misconduct and failures to protect children.
The settlement follows more than seven years of litigation and is expected to be formally signed in early November. It represents another extraordinary financial reckoning for an institution that has repeatedly failed to protect children from sexual predators within its ranks.
“Eight hundred million dollars. Thirteen hundred survivors. And that’s just one archdiocese,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “These numbers are almost impossible to comprehend, but behind every claim is a human being whose life was forever changed by abuse committed under the supposed moral authority of the Catholic Church. No amount of money can undo that harm.”
The New York settlement is only the latest in a growing list of enormous payouts involving Catholic institutions. In 2024, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay $880 million to approximately 1,000 survivors, on top of $740 million previously paid in abuse claims. Earlier this year, the Archdiocese of San Francisco agreed to a $395 million settlement involving approximately 500 lawsuits. In December 2025, a federal judge approved a settlement requiring the Archdiocese of New Orleans to pay at least $230 million to abuse survivors.
Together, these settlements represent billions of dollars in compensation for abuse that should never have occurred.
FFRF emphasizes that the financial settlements, while significant, cannot erase the institutional failures that allowed clergy sexual abuse to persist for generations. The Catholic Church’s longstanding culture of clerical deference, secrecy and protection of its reputation has too often come at the expense of vulnerable children.
“The Catholic Church has spent centuries claiming to be a moral authority on everything from sexuality to family life,” says FFRF Co-President Dan Barker. “Yet its own institutions have been responsible for an astonishing amount of sexual abuse and suffering.”
The New York agreement was made possible in part by the state’s Child Victims Act, enacted in 2019, which expanded opportunities for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to seek justice, including a temporary window allowing previously time-barred claims to proceed.
FFRF applauds the survivors whose courage and persistence made this settlement possible and urges lawmakers nationwide to ensure that statutes of limitations do not prevent survivors of childhood sexual abuse from holding perpetrators and complicit institutions accountable.
FFRF recently honored one of the nation’s leading advocates for clergy abuse survivors at its national convention in Milwaukee. Peter Isely, a survivor of childhood sexual assault by a Roman Catholic priest and co-founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), received FFRF’s Clarence Darrow Award in recognition of his advocacy. Isely’s decades of work helping survivors speak out and demanding accountability from the Catholic Church exemplify the courage and persistence that have made settlements like the one in New York possible.
“Every time another massive settlement is announced, we are reminded that this was never a matter of a few isolated bad actors,” adds Gaylor. “The scope of the abuse and the institutional failures demand far more than financial compensation — they demand transparency, accountability and an end to the culture of religious privilege that helped make these horrors possible.”
FFRF stands with the survivors and calls on religious institutions to prioritize the safety and well-being of children over the preservation of their reputations.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 40,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
