Fr. Stephen M. Kiesle of the Diocese of Oakland, California, he was convicted of lewd conduct for tying up and sexually abusing boys and was later sent to prison for abusing a girl. In 2023, he pleaded no contest to kill a pedestrian while driving drunk.

Fr. Mark Kristy of the Diocese of Sacramento he was convicted molested a girl under 14 for three years and in 2022 was sentenced to one year in prison. For most of the past decade, he lived in Napa County.

Fr. Jean-Pierre Bongila of the Archdiocese of San Francisco was sued because he allegedly sexually abused a girl. Church officials supposedly “authorized” him and him now it works at a Catholic college in Minnesota.

Fr. John S. Crews of the Diocese of Santa Rosa, California, resigned in 2013 after allegedly abusing a boy. In 2022, church officials settled with another man who said he was molested by Crews and others at the Hanna Boys Center in Sebastopol. (Apparently the crews now live in South Carolina.)

With each of these child molesters credibly accused—and with hundreds of other priest predators proven, acknowledged, and publicly accused—a key question is, “Did they act alone?

Or did a brother priest walk into one of them and witness a rape in progress but keep quiet? Or, after someone reported abuse to superiors, a church employee destroyed incriminating documents? Or was a bishop told by a seminary official, even before the priest’s ordination, that the young man had some serious problems and should not be allowed to become a priest?

Perhaps most important: Would an impartial jury, after examining all the evidence, find one or all guilty?

Unfortunately, we now almost certainly won’t get any of those answers. That’s because their employers — the heads of Catholic institutions in Northern California — are in federal court screaming “We’re bankrupt” and seeking Chapter 11 protection.

And bankruptcy proceedings stop civil lawsuits completely and all that comes with them: depositions, discovery and disclosure of documents. Many suspect this is the main reason church officials find Chapter 11 so attractive: It helps bishops keep secrets about abuse.

In fact, no part of the US now has more bankrupt Catholic dioceses than here in Northern California.

Four of the area’s dioceses – San Francisco, Oakland, SACRAMENTO and Santa Rosa — is in Chapter 11 proceedings. So is a religious order in Oakland, Franciscans. The Diocese of Fresno has announced its intention to file for bankruptcy protection, and the Diocese of Monterey has announced that it is also considering doing so. (Two other entities – the Oregon province of the Jesuits and the Diocese of Stockton — they were in bankruptcy, but they got out of it.)

In each case, the church hierarchy cites hundreds of clergy sexual abuse and cover-up lawsuits as the main cause behind their legal move.

All these institutions, however, are fully operational with no apparent restrictions or curtailment of their operations or activities.

So, in practical terms, what does it mean that these Catholic entities are in Chapter 11?

Unfortunately, it means that no group of Catholics in America is denied more information about clergy sex crimes and cover-ups than the roughly 1.6 million parishioners in the Bay Area and surrounding counties.

Again, this is largely the intention of the church hierarchy: These church officials are in bankruptcy court not because they are financially bankrupt, but because they are morally bankrupt. The bishops argue that they must protect church assets. But they are primarily concerned with protecting the secrets of the church.

For decades, these officials, their predecessors and their clerics committed, ignored or covered up thousands of heinous crimes against children. And now, they will go to extreme lengths to keep those crimes hidden even longer.

By exploiting federal laws and blocking abuse cases, the bishops keep under control information about clergy who are proven, admitted and credibly accused child abusers. They are simply putting children at risk of abuse right now.