What happened to you in the Diocese of Metuchen was not okay.

Ninety parishes across four counties, from Colonia to Phillipsburg, since 1981. Its first bishop was Theodore McCarrick. One of its priests came to New Jersey with a history a Virginia bishop had already written down. If you were an altar server, a student, a kid in the pews anywhere in that diocese, and something from those years never let go of you, this page is yours.

Free
Confidential
No obligation
You never pay a dollar

6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

This applies to you no matter what

You never told a soul. Neither, for a long while, had the man in the Middlesex County case. Nine when it started. Filed in 2021. Twenty-three years of not saying it.
The priest is dead. Father Butler died in 2016, McCarrick in April 2025. The case on file is against the diocese and the parish, not the man, and the diocese is still on Metlars Lane in Piscataway.
You went to the dioceses' 2019 claims program and turned the offer down, or never finished the packet. Only a signed release closes the door, and only for the diocese it names.
It was 1983, or 1990, and you've assumed the clock ran out. New Jersey rewrote its deadline law in 2019, and if you were born in 1971 or later your claim is open on age alone. Details below.
It happened in a Diocese of Trenton parish before Metuchen existed. Same counties, different letterhead. Say so on the call and we sort out which diocese answers.
You're a sister, a husband, a grown son asking for someone who can't. Reach out anyway. Plenty of people do.

The Diocese of Metuchen lawsuits: what the public record says, and when

Not a line of what follows is ours. It comes from a filed complaint, a published Appellate Division opinion, the diocese's own website and the reporters who covered them, and every entry links to where we found it. Where a court has found something, we say found. Everything else is an allegation, and we call it that. The diocese has not admitted liability in any of it.

1965 to 1970

The Appellate Division later set it out plainly. In 1965, serving on Long Island, Father John Butler was accused of and admitted abusing two boys, thirteen and fourteen. Richmond, the Virginia diocese he belonged to, was told. In 1968 its bishop wrote suggesting he find "a benevolent bishop in some diocese where you could get an entirely new and fresh start." In 1970 Richmond let him go to the Diocese of Trenton and called it an "experiment." Appellate Division opinion, December 7, 2023.

1982

The Diocese of Metuchen was carved out of Trenton, and Richmond again gave Butler permission to serve there as an extern priest. He stayed on Metuchen parish assignments for the next twenty years, still a Richmond priest on paper the whole time. Opinion, A-1919-22 (PDF).

April 11, 2002

Metuchen removed Butler from ministry after a man reported that he and others had been abused by Butler on Long Island decades earlier. Richmond suspended him from all priestly ministry that July. Three years on, in 2005, the Vatican dismissed him from the priesthood altogether, and he died in 2016. Assignment record, BishopAccountability.org.

February 13, 2019

Every one of New Jersey's five dioceses put out its list that day, clergy each called credibly accused of abusing minors: 188 names once you added them up. Metuchen's carried McCarrick, on the strength of the Archdiocese of New York's finding, and noted he had been its first bishop. Butler was not on it that day. America, February 14, 2019.

June 14, 2019

The diocese announced the five-diocese Independent Victim Compensation Program, run by Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros, open June 15 and closing December 31, 2019. In the same release it said that since 1981 it had paid "approximately $1.5 million dollars in settlements to 21 survivors." The diocese has never published what the program itself paid on its behalf. Diocese of Metuchen release.

September 16, 2021

The complaint this page is mostly about. Filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Middlesex County, under docket MID-L-005430-21, it alleges that Butler abused a boy at St. John Vianney in Colonia over roughly three years, 1995 to 1998, so from about age nine to twelve. Four defendants: the Diocese of Metuchen, St. John Vianney, St. John Vianney School and the Diocese of Richmond. Three theories, every one of them negligence: negligence itself, negligent training and supervision, negligent retention. It alleges the defendants "knew or should have known that Fr. Butler was a danger to children." The complaint (PDF).

Same day

It didn't come alone. Two more suits landed on the diocese the same day. One is from a man who says McCarrick, bishop here at the time, abused him between 1982 and 1985, when he was nineteen to twenty-two. In the other, a former St. Joseph High School student describes a religious brother, 1981 and 1982. And the plaintiff's lawyer made a point of noting that Butler, out of ministry since 2002, was still nowhere on the diocese's list. He is on it now. MyCentralJersey, September 16, 2021.

December 7, 2023

The Appellate Division published its opinion, 477 N.J. Super. 270, affirming the Middlesex County judge's January 23, 2023 ruling that Richmond has to answer in New Jersey. The court found Richmond "knew of Butler's history of child sexual abuse" and "encouraged and allowed him to serve as a priest in New Jersey as a way of sending him outside of Richmond's geographic boundaries." The case went back to Middlesex County to be tried. Doe v. Diocese of Metuchen, App. Div. 2023.

April 23, 2026

James Grein, who says McCarrick began abusing him at eleven and kept on into the 1980s and beyond, settled his suit against the Diocese of Metuchen and the Archdiocese of Newark for what his lawyer called "the high six figures." No exact figure was released. NorthJersey.com, April 23, 2026.

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 a Diocese of Metuchen lawsuit

The diocese. People miss that. The Middlesex County case isn't against Father Butler, who is dead. It's against the Diocese of Metuchen, the parish, the parish school, and the Virginia diocese that sent him north. Put a priest in front of children and you owe them something: to know who he is, to check, and to do something when someone speaks up. The complaint alleges Metuchen knew or should have known Butler was a danger before he ever got near this boy. What a court has actually found, so far, is one step upstream: that the Diocese of Richmond knew, in writing, and let him go north anyway. Whether Metuchen asked, and what Richmond told it, is what the trial is for.

Metuchen is a solvent diocese of about 636,000 Catholics and 90 parishes. It has not filed for bankruptcy, unlike Camden. It took part in the 2019 claims program, it settled the Grein case privately this spring, and it has said nothing public about a global deal. A lawyer will look at the diocese, the parish, and, depending on the priest, the diocese or religious order he came from.

One thing to know about the diocese's own list. It carries fifteen names today, McCarrick among them. Butler's entry reads, in the diocese's words, "Deceased; Guilty finding in a civil court," and notes he also appears on Richmond's list. A list is the diocese's finding, not a court's, and nobody on this page has been criminally convicted of anything described here. We say that because it matters, not because it changes what you can do.

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

New Jersey rewrote this in 2019, and the rewrite is permanent. Under N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2a, a person abused as a child can file until they turn 55, or within seven years of reasonably working out that the abuse caused their harm, whichever comes later. It reaches back to abuse from any year. There is no close date. The same law also took away the charitable-immunity defense the diocese used to raise.

Hence the question about 1971. Born in 1971 or later, you're under 55 in 2026, and that alone opens the age route; nothing else about timing needs proving. Think about what that covers here. The diocese didn't exist until November 1981, so almost anybody who was a child in one of its parishes lands in that group. Born before 1971, and it turns on the seven years: when you first connected what happened to the harm it did. That is a real question with a real answer, but it takes a lawyer walking through it with you, not a calendar.

One thing that has passed. For two years, December 2019 to November 30, 2021, New Jersey also let people file claims that were already too old under the old law; the Middlesex County case came in through that window. That window is closed. It doesn't touch the age-55 route or the discovery route, which are both still open. An adult who was abused has seven years from discovery, same statute.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never said it out loud. Not to a spouse, not to a priest, not to anyone.
You don't have a word for it. Half of you is convinced it wouldn't count anyway.
It wasn't a priest. A deacon, a brother, a teacher, the coach.
You stayed in the parish. Your kids were baptized there.
You got a packet from the 2019 claims program and never sent it back.
You live in Pennsylvania or New York now. Half of central Jersey does.

Parishes and schools covered

Any parish or school of the Diocese of Metuchen, 1981 onward, in Middlesex, Somerset, Hunterdon or Warren County, and those same parishes back when they belonged to the Diocese of Trenton · St. John Vianney Church and School in Colonia · the other places the diocese lists Butler serving: Ss. Philip and James in Phillipsburg, St. Thomas the Apostle in Old Bridge, Our Lady of Fatima in Piscataway, Our Lady of Peace in Fords, St. Mary in South Amboy · St. Joseph High School, Metuchen · St. Pius X High School ·the chancery and the bishop's residence. If it was another parish, or a religious order's school inside the diocese, the questions still work. Answer them and say so on the call.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue the Diocese of Metuchen?

People have. The one on file in Middlesex County, MID-L-005430-21, names the diocese, a parish, a parish school and the Diocese of Richmond, and the appeal that mattered went the plaintiff's way. Whether you can depends mostly on when you were born and what happened, which is what the questions above sort out.

McCarrick is dead. Can I still bring a claim?

Yes. Nobody was suing McCarrick alone anyway. Grein's settlement, up in the record, was with the Diocese of Metuchen and the Archdiocese of Newark, and it came a year after McCarrick's death in April 2025, at 94, a man laicized since 2019. The diocese's first years, 1981 to 1986, were his as bishop. If they were yours too, say so on the call.

Is Father John Butler on the Diocese of Metuchen list?

Yes, now. It took a while. The list came out in February 2019 without him, and when the Middlesex County complaint was filed in September 2021 the plaintiff's lawyer noted he still wasn't there. Today his entry says he is deceased and notes he also appears on the Diocese of Richmond's list. So far as any public record shows, he was never criminally charged, anywhere.

I applied to the church's 2019 claims program. Can I still sue?

It depends on one thing: whether you accepted an offer and signed a release. The program's own terms said a release was required only if you took the money. If you were turned down, withdrew, or never finished, nothing was signed and nothing is closed, and if you've still got the paperwork somewhere, dig it out before the call.

Statute of limitations in New Jersey: what's the real deadline?

Two clocks, and you get the later one. Your 55th birthday is the first. The second runs seven years from when you reasonably worked out that the abuse did you harm, which for a lot of people is decades after the fact, all of it under N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2a, the law passed in 2019, which doesn't sunset. Something did close on November 30, 2021, and people mix it up with this: the two-year revival window, a separate thing, meant for claims already dead under the old law. The age-55 route was never part of it, and it didn't close with it.

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.

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.