What happened to you in a Newark Archdiocese parish was not okay.

Four counties. Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Union. Something like 1.3 million Catholics, and a list the Archdiocese itself published in 2019 with 63 names on it. If you were an altar server, a student, a kid in the youth group at any of its parishes or schools, and a priest or a brother did something you have never quite put down, then yes. This page is about you.

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This applies to you no matter what

It was fifty years ago. The complaints on file reach back to 1958. New Jersey rewrote its deadline in 2019, and for a lot of people that clock never runs out. Details below.
The priest is dead. Two of the seven named in the July 2020 filings were dead before the complaints went in. The cases were never really against them. They're against the Archdiocese. Which is still there, still at 171 Clifton Avenue.
His name isn't on the Archdiocese's list. Sixty-three names are, every one pulled from the Archdiocese's own files, and then in one week of November 2021 another twenty-three Newark names came out through lawsuits. A list is a floor, not a ceiling.
You went to the compensation program in 2019 and took what they offered. Say so on the call, first thing. It changes what a lawyer can do.
You already went to the Archdiocese, years ago, and it went nowhere. Several of the people suing now say exactly that. It is part of their case, not a mark against it.
You live in New York or Pennsylvania now, or anywhere. Nearly everyone who grew up in Hudson County left Hudson County.
You're a sister, a husband, a grown son asking for someone who can't. Reach out anyway. Plenty of people do.

The Archdiocese of Newark lawsuits: what the public record says, and when

None of this is ours. It's the Archdiocese's own list, the state courts, the New Jersey Attorney General and the reporters who covered them, and every line links to where it came from. We don't add to it. A complaint is an allegation, a name on a list is that list's finding, and the Archdiocese has not admitted liability in any pending case. One of the men below was convicted; the rest were not.

February 13, 2019

Cardinal Tobin released the Archdiocese's list of diocesan clergy with credible allegations of abusing a minor, going back to 1940. Some 63 names, 33 of them dead, the rest removed from ministry. Capparelli, Martin, Rice and Sudol, four of the priests sued the next year, are on it. So is Theodore McCarrick. The Archdiocese's spokeswoman said the New Jersey church had by then paid more than $50 million in settlements. NBC News.

January 7, 2020

The five New Jersey dioceses' Independent Victim Compensation Program, run by Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros, extended its deadline to February 15, 2020. By that January the administrators had paid or authorized more than $9.2 million to claimants across the state, out of church funds, with no public money. Program announcement (Diocese of Camden).

July 13, 2020

Jeff Anderson & Associates and Gianforcaro Law filed nine complaints against the Archdiocese in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Union and Essex Counties, naming seven clergy. The conduct alleged runs from 1958 at St. Bernard in Plainfield to 1994 at Holy Trinity in Westfield, with St. Joseph High School in Montvale, St. John the Apostle in Linden, St. Andrew's in Bayonne, St. Theresa in Kenilworth and St. Francis of Assisi in Ridgefield Park in between. The complaints also say the Archdiocese had allegations against Father Gerard Sudol in hand by 1996, and that in 2018 he was still at one of its parishes. And one of the seven wasn't only accused. Brother John Dagwell already had a conviction, Bergen County Superior Court, August 1988, endangering the welfare of a child. Union News Daily.

November 2021

Jason Schack's complaint, filed in Essex County against the Archdiocese, is about Monsignor Eugene Fanelli. Thirty-eight years at Our Lady of Libera in West New York. Dead since 2000. Schack says it started the day of his first Communion and didn't stop for seven years. He was the fourth man to file over Fanelli; one suit went in in 2019, another that October from a man who says it started in 1970, when he was seven and in the parish grammar school. The Archdiocese said it takes every allegation seriously. It had not updated its 2019 list. NorthJersey.com.

November 12, 2021

With the two-year filing window about to close, the state courts counted 880 lawsuits filed under the new law through September 30, most of them naming a cleric or a religious institution. One of the newest, in Essex County, was brought by a man who says he was 15 and in the youth group at Holy Trinity in Westfield when Father John Capparelli abused him, more than forty years earlier. NJ Advance Media.

November 18, 2021

Thirty-four alleged abusers were named publicly for the first time through the window filings, 23 of them connected to the Archdiocese of Newark. Among them Monsignor Paul Schetelick and Father Frank Hofgartner, each a defendant in an Essex County complaint against the Archdiocese (ESX-L-008108-21 and ESX-L-002772-21). Jeff Anderson & Associates, via BishopAccountability.

June 16, 2025

The Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled that nothing stops the Attorney General from taking a grand jury presentment on statewide clergy abuse, and the conditions that let it go unchecked, after a court fight that ran for years. The Attorney General's office said it remains committed to finishing the work it began in 2018. New Jersey Attorney General.

April 23, 2026

James Grein's lawyer announced a settlement with the Archdiocese of Newark and the Diocese of Metuchen, ending a case filed in 2018 that said McCarrick, then Newark's archbishop, began abusing him when he was 11 and kept on for years. The amount was not disclosed. The Archdiocese's line was that the resolution reflects a mutual agreement to avoid prolonged litigation. McCarrick himself, out of ministry since 2018, died last year. He was 94. NJ Advance Media.

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from April 23, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in an Archdiocese of Newark lawsuit

Not the priest, or not only him. Every complaint above names the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. The corporation. The one at 171 Clifton Avenue that assigned these men, moved them around, kept their files and, so the complaints say, kept quiet. The theory isn't complicated. Put an adult in charge of children and you have to watch him. When a kid says something, you have to act. The filings allege the Archdiocese didn't. The Sudol complaint says it had allegations in hand by 1996 and left him in a parish until 2018. The Grein case said the Archdiocese's own archbishop was the one doing it. Where the record shows what the Archdiocese knew, the case is against the institution, and the institution is the one with the money.

And it does have the money. The Archdiocese of Newark has not filed for bankruptcy, not so far anyway. Camden did, October 2020, and from that day every Camden claim became a race against a bar date. Newark is not there. It paid into the 2019 compensation program out of its own funds, it settled the McCarrick case this spring, and its list says plainly that inclusion is not an admission of guilt, so it is still contesting the rest. One thing a lawyer will want to know early: whether you took a payment from the compensation program, because a signed release closes the court door. If you didn't, it's open.

Your deadline: the New Jersey statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse claims

New Jersey rewrote this in 2019, and the rewrite favors you. It's N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2a, for anyone who wants to read the thing, and here is what it does. Under 18 at the time? Then the door stays open until you turn 55, or, if that's later, until seven years after the day you reasonably connected what happened to the harm it did. It reaches back, and there's no end date on it. Two other things the 2019 law did while it was at it. The Archdiocese isn't a public body, so there's no notice-of-claim step to trip over. And charitable immunity, the defense the church used to lean on, was taken away.

Here is the catch, and it is why we ask your birth year. The same law opened a window, two years of it, December 1, 2019 through November 30, 2021, when anyone could file, any age, any birth year. That window is closed. So today, if you were born in 1971 or later, you are under 55 and can file on age alone. Born before 1971, and a lawyer needs a different set of facts: when you first understood that what happened to you caused the harm, not when it happened. New Jersey counts the seven years from that day, and for a lot of people that day was recent. If you were an adult at the time, the same seven years from discovery applies.

Plainly, then. For anyone born in 1971 or later there is no question. For everyone else there is often still a way, but it turns on facts only you know, and it takes a conversation, not a guess. A lawyer decides it, not us.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never said it out loud. Not to your wife, your husband, a priest. Nobody.
You don't have a word for what it was. Half of you is convinced it wouldn't even count.
You stayed in the Church. Went back to that parish. Sent your own kids there.
It was a brother, a lay teacher, a coach at the parish school, not a priest.
The man's name is on nobody's list. Neither were 23 other Newark names, until they surfaced in one week in November 2021.
You live outside New Jersey now.

Parishes and schools covered

Any parish, any grammar school, any high school the Archdiocese of Newark runs or ran, in Bergen, Essex, Hudson or Union County, and any year at all. Named in filings so far: St. Bernard, Plainfield · St. John the Apostle, Linden · St. Andrew's, Bayonne · St. Theresa, Kenilworth · Holy Trinity, Westfield · St. Francis of Assisi, Ridgefield Park · St. Joseph High School, Montvale · Our Lady of Libera, West New York. Yours isn't there? That means nobody has filed yet. It does not mean nothing happened. Answer the questions and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue the Archdiocese of Newark?

People are. Nine complaints went in on one day in July 2020, and the state counted 880 window filings across New Jersey by the fall of 2021, most of them naming a cleric or a church. Whether you can depends on when you were born and, if before 1971, on when you connected what happened to the harm. That's what the questions above sort out.

What if I already took money from the compensation program?

Then say so on the call, first thing. Taking an award from the 2019 program meant signing a release not to sue on that claim. It doesn't make the call pointless, but a lawyer has to see the release before they can tell you anything, and it may close this particular door.

The priest is dead. Can I still bring a claim?

Yes. The claims that matter are against the Archdiocese, and it is very much still here and not in bankruptcy. Look at the July 2020 complaints: seven clergy named, two of them already dead. Father Rice, since 2014. Father Capparelli, since 2019. Monsignor Fanelli? Dead 21 years by the time the suits about him went in.

Is there a New Jersey statute of limitations for child sexual abuse, and when does it run out?

Long, since 2019, and not the one your parents' lawyer would have known. Since 2019, a claim for something that happened to you as a child runs until your 55th birthday, or seven years from the day you reasonably discovered the harm, whichever lands later. What trips people up is the window. For two years anyone could file, any age; that shut on November 30, 2021. Born in 1971 or later, you're inside on age. Earlier, and it turns on the discovery facts.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Nothing, here. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case. New Jersey caps the lawyer's percentage by court rule, and that cap is on their side of the line, not yours.

How much is an Archdiocese of Newark settlement?

We won't put a number on this page, and be wary of anyone who does. The compensation program paid what it paid and is closed. The Grein settlement this spring was not disclosed. It depends on what happened, what the Archdiocese knew, and when, and a lawyer will tell you plainly after they've looked at your facts.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed New Jersey attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.