What happened to you in a Paterson Diocese parish or school was not okay.

Three counties. Passaic, Morris, Sussex. 107 parishes, the schools that went with them, the camps and the hospital chaplaincies. If you were a kid in any of it, in any decade, and a priest or a brother or a teacher did something you have never been able to set down, then this is about you, and it doesn't matter how long ago, or how old you are now.

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

This applies to you no matter what

It was the sixties, or the seventies, and you figure that's too long ago to count. Look at the 820 church suits filed in New Jersey between 2019 and 2021: more than 80 percent of them were about those two decades and the 1980s. Old is normal here.
You never told a soul. The man who sued over Don Bosco Tech testified he didn't report it to anyone, for 45 years. The case went forward anyway.
The priest is dead. Most of the 29 men on the diocese's own list are. The claims that matter are against the diocese, which is still at 777 Valley Road in Clifton.
The place wasn't the diocese's, strictly. An order ran it, the Salesians say, or the Capuchins or the Franciscans, and it was a school or a camp. Then the order is who answers, and they have paid before. Say which place on the call.
You took money from the church's fund in 2019 or 2020, or signed something years ago. Bring it. A lawyer reads what you signed before anyone decides anything.
You're a brother, a wife, a grown child asking for someone who can't. Reach out anyway. A lot of people do.

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

None of what follows is ours. It is a federal court, the diocese's own list, the reporters at The Record and NJ.com who covered it, and we link to every line. We don't add to it. Where a case was settled, that is a settlement, not a finding. Where a complaint says something, the word is alleges, and we use it.

2004

The diocese settled with 21 people who said James Hanley abused them, for close to $5 million. In court papers Hanley himself had admitted to at least a dozen children over 14 years, some at St. Joseph's in Mendham, where he was pastor for ten years, some in Pompton Plains, and though he was defrocked in 2003 the church was still paying him a stipend when he died in a nursing home in April 2020. NJ.com, April 28, 2020.

September 14, 2015

Monsignor Ronald Tully next. Vice principal at Pope Pius XII High School in Passaic through the 1970s. The diocese confirmed to The Record that it had settled again over him, and the paper's tally by then was at least nine people, about $2.1 million between them. Removed from ministry in 2004, laicized in 2016, he died in 2018 still denying all of it. The Record, September 14, 2015.

February 13, 2019

The Diocese of Paterson's own list came out on this date, 28 priests and deacons it had found credibly accused of sexually abusing minors, each with his assignments, and a 29th name added soon after. Hanley and Tully are both on it. We're quoting the diocese, not adding to it, when we say several were also convicted, and that a number had been made known to law enforcement back in the 1980s and 1990s. The diocese's list (cached June 2022).

February 7, 2020

Father Sean Rooney taught chemistry at Don Bosco Technical High School in Paterson. He was a Salesian priest, and this is the Don Bosco case: a complaint in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Passaic County, that the Salesians moved to federal court, where it's S.Y. v. Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson et al., D.N.J. 2:20-cv-02605. The complaint alleges he abused one student there more than 100 times, 1973 to 1975, starting when the boy was 13, and that a Salesian seminary had heard the same accusation about him before anyone moved him to Paterson. Negligent hiring, retention and supervision, pleaded against the diocese, the Salesians of Don Bosco and the school. The plaintiff let the diocese out on September 30, 2020. A year on, Judge Salas wouldn't dismiss it, and upheld the 2019 law it had been filed under. Opinion, D.N.J., September 30, 2021.

November 2021

The two-year window New Jersey had opened shut on November 30. The Record's count as of November 24, six days out: 820 suits against the Catholic Church in the state, and 85 of those against the Diocese of Paterson alone. The Salesians had been sued 19 times. NorthJersey.com, November 29, 2021.

March 21, 2024

Judge Padin refused to throw the Don Bosco case out. The plaintiff had testified that a priest or brother walked in on them in the locked locker-room showers, and that other clergy saw him coming and going from the off-limits living quarters, so a jury could find the Salesians knew or should have known. The order's own 2005 wellness plan for Rooney acknowledged seven known victims. Trial was set for April 7, 2025. Opinion, D.N.J., March 21, 2024.

December 2024 and January 2025

Two new suits naming the diocese, filed years after the window closed. The first concerns Our Lady of the Valley in Wayne: a boy of 10 to 12, the years 1988 to 1991, and a priest who has been dead since 1997, the complaint alleges. The second went in at Passaic County and alleges that a Capuchin friar at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Passaic abused an altar boy, more than 100 times it says, from 1989 to 1993. Asked about either, the diocese declined to comment. The Record, January 16, 2025.

March 25, 2025

Thirteen days before the jury was due, the Don Bosco case settled. The court administratively terminated it that day pending consummation of settlement, and entered an order of dismissal on June 3, 2025. The terms are not public. Nothing on that docket is a finding against anyone. Docket, D.N.J. 2:20-cv-02605.

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from March 25, 2025. 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 Paterson lawsuit

The diocese, first. Not only the man. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson runs the parishes and parish schools of Passaic, Morris and Sussex counties, about 439,600 Catholics and 107 parishes at last count, from a chancery at 777 Valley Road in Clifton. The 85 suits filed against it by 2021 say, one way or another, what the Don Bosco complaint said: that the people who hired a priest, moved him and left him around children had a duty to watch him and to act when something came back to them, and didn't. That's negligent hiring, retention and supervision. It is a claim against the institution, not the priest.

What the diocese knew is partly on its own paper. Its list says a number of the 29 were reported to law enforcement in the 1980s and 1990s. Hanley admitted the abuse in court papers and the diocese paid 21 of his accusers. Tully was removed in 2004, The Record reported, after the diocese got word of 1979 criminal charges over two Pope Pius students. Those are the kinds of facts a lawyer builds a case on, and they are already public. And since June 13, 2025, when the Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled unanimously that the Attorney General's grand jury investigation of the state's dioceses can go forward, there may be more.

One thing to know going in. Where the place was run by a religious order rather than the diocese, Don Bosco Tech in Paterson, the Don Bosco College camp in Newton, the Capuchins' parish in Passaic, the diocese has argued it wasn't in control and has been dismissed on that basis. In the Don Bosco case the plaintiff let the diocese go, and the Salesians carried the case to the eve of trial and then settled it. That isn't a dead end. It means the order is the defendant, and the order is solvent and has paid before. A lawyer sorts out which, or both.

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

New Jersey rewrote this law in 2019, and the rewrite is permanent. Under N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2a, a claim for sexual abuse as a child can be filed any time before you turn 55, or within seven years of the day you reasonably connected what happened to the harm it did, whichever is later. That applies to abuse from any year. There is no end date on it, and charitable immunity no longer shields a diocese from this kind of claim.

Here is why we ask your birth year. If you were born in 1971 or later, you are under 55 in 2026 and the age rule alone keeps the door open. Born before 1971, and the seven-year discovery rule is the route, which turns on facts only you have: when you first understood what it did to you, what you were told, what you weren't. That is a conversation, not a date you can read off a calendar. Adults abused as adults get seven years from that same discovery.

And one thing the law did that is over. New Jersey also opened a window. Two years of it, from December 1, 2019 to November 30, 2021, when anyone whose claim the old rules had killed could file anyway. The 85 Paterson suits and the Don Bosco case were filed in it. That window is closed. Nobody can file under it now, so if a website tells you otherwise, be careful. The age and discovery rules above are what's left, and for most people they are enough.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You have never said it out loud. Not to a spouse, not to a priest, not to anyone.
You don't have a word for what happened and you're half convinced it wouldn't count.
The priest isn't on the diocese's list. Rooney isn't either. The list is what the diocese decided to print; the suits are not limited to it.
It was a brother or a friar, a teacher, a coach, not a diocesan priest.
You stayed in the church. You still go.
You live in New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, anywhere. Most people who grew up in those parishes don't live there anymore, and it changes nothing.

Parishes, schools and programs covered

Start with the parishes and parish schools of the Diocese of Paterson, all of them, Passaic, Morris and Sussex counties, whatever the year. Add the diocesan high schools, Pope Pius XII in Passaic, DePaul Catholic in Wayne, Bayley-Ellard in Madison, Paterson Catholic and Neumann Prep. Then the ones the diocese's own list names. St. Joseph in Mendham. Our Lady of Good Counsel in Pompton Plains. Immaculate Heart of Mary in Wayne. St. Rose of Lima in East Hanover. Immaculate Conception in Franklin. The chaplaincies at St. Joseph's Hospital in Paterson and at Dover General. Last, the order-run places inside the diocese, which means a different defendant but the same page. Don Bosco Technical High School in Paterson, which the Salesians ran until it closed in 2002. Don Bosco College in Newton, and its summer camp. Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Passaic, the Capuchins' parish until 2018. Not on this list? Answer the questions anyway, and give us the name on the call.

Questions people are asking

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.

Can I still sue the Diocese of Paterson?

Most people, yes. New Jersey gives you until you turn 55, or seven years from the day you connected the abuse to the harm it did, whichever lands later. The two-year window that produced the 85 suits closed in November 2021; the age and discovery rules didn't close with it. The questions above are how we work out which of the two you fall under.

Is Father Sean Rooney on the credibly accused list?

Not the diocese's, no. The Salesians of Don Bosco put out their own list in March 2020 and he's on that one, with his assignments (Don Bosco Tech in Paterson, Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey) and a note that he was laicized in 2008. No crime has ever been charged against him. The Don Bosco Tech case was civil, brought against the order, and it settled in 2025 on terms nobody has made public.

I already got money from the church's fund. Can I still file?

Probably not for the same abuse. The New Jersey dioceses' victims' fund paid about $40 million to 348 people between 2019 and 2022, and the people who accepted agreed not to sue. Still, what you signed and what it actually covers is a legal question. Have a lawyer read it; that part costs you nothing.

What is a Diocese of Paterson settlement worth?

We won't put a number on this page, and you should be wary of anyone who does. The public figures are what they are: about $5 million to 21 people in 2004, about $2.1 million to nine by 2015. Yours depends on what happened, what the diocese or the order knew, and when. A lawyer tells you plainly after they've looked.

I keep hearing New Jersey has no statute of limitations on child sexual abuse anymore. Is that true?

There is one. Generous, but it exists. N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2a: age 55 or seven years from discovery, whichever is later, for abuse in any year. It is not unlimited. Someone born in 1960 who has understood the harm for decades may have a harder road than someone born in 1975, and only a lawyer can tell you which you are.

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.