From KSEE / KGPE:
Retired Fresno Diocese employees will no longer receive retirement benefits starting next year.
Hundreds of former employees are now left scrambling over what to do with their financial future now up in the air.
In a letter to retirees last month, the diocese said the retirement plan was frozen at the end of June.
The church says they contributed the agreed-upon amount negotiated in employee contracts, but the diocese says Christian Brothers Services, the company responsible for managing the money, is the reason there isn’t enough to continue payments.
The diocese says it explored legal options to transfer the money into a retirement plan of their own. but said that plan would not be possible with the church filing for bankruptcy…
…Current diocese employees are no longer receiving retirement benefits as of now. The church says they are working to start a separate plan for employees with similar benefits to the previous one.
Some background, from EWTN:
The Diocese of Fresno in California filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 1, seeking to address more than 150 abuse claims filed there in what Bishop Joseph Brennan said was part of a “journey of conversion through contrition.”
Brennan announced the filing via a video message on Tuesday. The bishop’s message comes more than a year after he announced, in May 2024, that the diocese would seek the bankruptcy filing.
The prelate said the filing was “the only path that will allow us to handle claims of sexual abuse with compassion that is fair and equitable while simultaneously ensuring the continuation of ministry within our diocese.”
As with other dioceses in California and the U.S., the Fresno Diocese is facing a large number of allegations of clergy abuse. Brennan said last year that plaintiffs had lodged 154 sex abuse complaints against the Church there.
Those filings were made under a California law that temporarily relaxed the statute of limitations on sex abuse claims, allowing alleged victims a three-year window from 2019 to 2022 to file the complaints.
Brennan said the Fresno bankruptcy process will include allocating diocesan assets to “satisfy the claims against the diocese.” He added that a fund will also be established to pay abuse claims.
And, it turns out, according to this report from last month, parishes are going to feel the pain, too:
Members of the Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in the Fresno diocese learned over the weekend that money they contributed for a new church building will instead be used in an ongoing bankruptcy settlement.
The fallout stems from a July 2025 bankruptcy filing by the Catholic Diocese of Fresno in response to a surge of sexual abuse claims. The resulting settlement will require the diocese to liquidate assets like unused property and use money on hand to pay victims who were sexually abused by clergy.
During a Sunday Mass livestreamed on Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church’s YouTube page, Monsignor Perry Kavookjian told parishioners that despite money contributed by them being earmarked by the church for a separate fund to help pay for a new building, the diocese placed it into a general fund account that lawyers for the victims argue is fair game.
“When the diocese first filed for bankruptcy, we were assured that parish monies would remain untouched, especially those funds earmarked for our building project. Last month, all the clergy met with our attorneys who told us that parish funds on deposit with the diocese were not protected,” said Kavookjian.
