Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The Buffalo Catholic Diocese is calling on parishes to cover up to $80 million of the $150 million settlement to victims of clergy sex abuse.
Nandor Forgach, a parishioner at St. Benedict's, tells WBEN he anticipates his parish will be on the higher end of percentages of unrestricted funds to go toward the settlement.
"That's a hard number to survive once it's out there for anyone," said Forgach. "It's sad to see what they're doing and what they're seemingly setting up the future of the church of Western New York to look like, if it even survives this, this whole process that they're doing. That being said, I think all the parishioners that are out there should continue to fight for our best interest, to maintain our communities. Because, like I said before, you know we shouldn't be paying for the sins of our leadership that that really screwed things up and got us to this point."
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Forgach says the pushback needs to continue by parishioners.
"I'm no lawyer, so this might be a very naïve thought of mine, but we saw the news story come out with regards to a ruling that they can only use a certain percentage of the sale from the [Christ the King] Seminary for the bankruptcy because that wasn't in the donor's wishes to have those funds used for that like it goes against what the donor initially intended that donation to be used for," explained Forgach.
"It's tough for certain parishes that either are well off or someone that are not well off, because it could be catastrophic either way," added Patrick Gorman of Save Our Buffalo Churches. "The hope is the churches that are still functioning, can somehow push through this and get to the other side."
Gorman attends Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Buffalo's "Old First Ward".
"We have appealed the recommendation to merge and close our parish. So the Diocese of Buffalo has looked at that, and that is on hold as of right now, so we will have to wait to see what the Diocese of Buffalo is going to assess the parishes that are on hold and we challenge them already," Gorman said with WBEN. "What are they going to do to us? I just hope they don't retaliate after us for appealing their recommendation to close or merge us."
Gorman says his church is a church that's trending up, as far as the amount of funds it's receiving every week, and the amount of people attending.
"If we are hit with 80%, that would be catastrophic. If we are hit with anything that is 50% or above, I would deem it to be very, very hard for us," he said. "Anything that does come out of our funds, it could be catastrophic, and it would depend on the people in the old first ward to rally around, once again, as we always do."
Another Our Lady of Perpetual Help parishioner, Roxanne Casey, fears the appeal may come back to hurt them.
"I just hope they don't retaliate after us for appealing their recommendation to close or merge us. I would hope not. So let's just keep the prayers going and unite in faith and hope that that's not what they're doing," says Casey, who says she was surprised to hear, but knew this was coming.
Casey has a feeling the higher percentage, up to 80%, of unrestricted funds will come from churches already ordered closed or merged.
"I have a horrible gut feeling, unfortunately, that any parish that was on the closure merge list is probably on the high end of the percentage, and that could be their just intent to purposefully close us without them having to close us," Casey fears.
Payments are due by July 15.