What happened to you at Mater Dei High School was not okay.

Edinger Avenue, Santa Ana. Mater Dei, since 1950, and a record that runs from a vice principal in 1978 to a counselor in 1995 and a pair of choir teachers in the late 1990s. Nobody was ever charged. The Diocese of Orange has paid instead: four cases in 2007, one more in June 2012, $3.5 million in December 2024 on the eve of a jury trial, and plaintiffs' lawyers counted two more Mater Dei cases headed for trial after that. So if your years there are somewhere in that stretch, or after it, we think this page is about you. Keep reading. The questions come first, and they're short.

WatchingSeptember 2026: the two Mater Dei cases plaintiffs' lawyers said in December 2024 were set for trial in 2025, and the January 2022 complaint over a former track and football coach, have no reported outcome we could find; 63 cases were pending against the Diocese of Orange by the lawyers' count. The Diocese has not filed for bankruptcy (checked September 15, 2026).

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

Looking for the page about the whole Diocese? Diocese of Orange survivors: the Roman Catholic Bishop of Orange as the defendant, the record from Mater Dei, Santa Margarita, Servite and the parishes, and one set of questions that works for every school and parish the Diocese ran.

This applies to you no matter what

It wasn't a priest. Most of what's on this page isn't. A basketball coach, a counselor, two choir teachers, a track and football coach. The Diocese was the defendant every time.
His name is on no list. The Diocese's list is priests only, and Patrick Callahan, a coach, wasn't on anybody's list until a complaint got filed in January 2022, thirty-five years after the summer it describes.
You told someone at the school and nothing came of it. So did the woman who sued over the counselor in 1995, she says; her lawyer says three grown men sat her down with a tape recorder. That's part of her case. Not a strike against it.
It was the '80s. Or the '70s, even. So was the claim the Diocese paid $3.5 million on in December 2024: one afternoon in 1978. Whether the clock has run for you turns on your birth year and on when you first connected what happened to the harm. The deadline section below spells it out.
You stayed Catholic. Sent your own kids there, maybe. Plenty of the people in these cases did.
You live in Nevada or Arizona now, or Texas, or anywhere. People who went to Mater Dei in 1985 mostly aren't in Santa Ana anymore. Or it isn't you you're asking for. Reach out anyway.

The Mater Dei record: the complaints, the settlements, and when

None of this is ours. It's the Orange County Superior Court filings, the Diocese of Orange's own statements, and the reporters who covered them, and every line links to where it came from. A complaint is an allegation. A settlement is what the Diocese chose to pay, without admitting anything. No one named here was ever criminally charged over Mater Dei, and Michael Harris, whose name comes up most, denied everything and was never charged at all. The Diocese's wider record, the parishes, the other schools, the two priests who were convicted, lives on the Diocese of Orange page, not here.

October 1994

The first of it, in print. A former student named David Price had sued the month before, in September 1994, naming Monsignor Michael Harris and church officials. He said the abuse ran from his freshman year in 1979 through 1983, in Harris's office at Mater Dei and at his home. Harris had run the school since 1978, vice principal and then principal, and left in 1988 to open Santa Margarita. In January 1994 the Diocese had asked him to take a leave while it looked into similar allegations; the Register reported the Diocese had heard from the mother of a second former student, Vincent Colice, the December before. Harris denied it all. Orange County Register (via BishopAccountability).

October 5, 2007

The Diocese settled four more cases for just shy of $7 million, three of them from former students at Mater Dei and Santa Margarita who said lay teachers had abused them. One was Christina Ruiz, who said assistant basketball coach Jeff Andrade had sex with her repeatedly when she was 16. Another teacher intercepted a note about it, she said, and officials interviewed her, her best friend and Andrade, and did nothing. Andrade later admitted the relationship in his deposition. Another plaintiff, Sarah Gray, said her choir teachers had molested her in the late 1990s. The AP's tally that week: Mater Dei accounted for about 15 percent of the cases the Diocese had settled since 2001, and the accused there included a principal, a vice principal, a guidance counselor, a track coach and two choir directors. Associated Press, via Fox News.

June 18, 2012

Nine-thirty on a Monday night, in Judge Ronald L. Bauer's courtroom at Orange County Superior Court, the Diocese settled with a former Mater Dei student for $2 million. An Air Force lieutenant colonel by then. He said Harris, then the principal, called him into his office in 1986 or 1987, presented him with a rosary and a gift, and abused him. The settlement came with an apology, which the plaintiff had asked for. Harris maintained his innocence. Patch.

December 24 and 26, 2019

Two complaints in Orange County Superior Court in the last week of the year, both under the window California had just opened. The first is Nicole Bonilla's. She was 39 when she filed and 15 in 1995, when, she says, counselor Bernie Balsis abused her in his office under the guise of counseling. Her complaint goes further: Diocese officials knew or had reason to know of prior acts by him, and when she complained about his touching, school officials refused to report him to the police. The second, a man born in 1963. Harris called him to the principal's office at 15, the complaint says, and told him his grades might get him expelled. Comforted him. Then assaulted him. And the Diocese? Harris is on its list of credibly accused priests, it said, and it doesn't comment on pending litigation. Patch (City News Service).

January 20, 2022

A woman who had been a student assistant to the football team filed in Orange County Superior Court against Mater Dei and the Diocese, named as Doe 1 and Doe 2 until a judge approves the names. Patrick Callahan, track and football coach, physical education teacher. She met him at a Mater Dei track camp in the summer of 1984, before her freshman year, the complaint says; the worst of it was Hell Week in the summer of 1987, on the football field while the team slept in the gym. Dinners off campus, alcohol, assaults in front of other coaches. As an adult she reported it to Mater Dei and to the Diocese, and met with the Diocese's chancellor. It appears to be the first public accusation against Callahan, who went on to coach at Santa Margarita and then at Cerritos College. The Diocese said it had not been served. Los Angeles Times, via AOL.

December 17, 2024

From the Diocese itself: a $3.5 million settlement with John Doe OG 1003, who alleged Harris abused him one time in 1978 at Mater Dei, when Harris was vice principal. Jury selection at the North Justice Center in Fullerton was days away. The statement's own words: "The Diocese vigorously defended this decades-old claim and was prepared to take it to trial." Its insurers funded the settlement entirely. Harris, it notes, was laicized in 2003. Diocese of Orange statement.

December 18, 2024

The next morning, outside Christ Cathedral, the plaintiff's lawyers said their cases had turned up "at least 13 child predators" who had worked at Mater Dei over the years, and that two more Mater Dei cases were set for trial in 2025 as bellwethers. They counted 63 cases pending against the Diocese. Their client's statement was read for him: "They promised I would be safe at school." The Diocese pointed to its published list of credibly accused priests and its fingerprinting and training rules, and said the events alleged were more than four decades old. Roughly 200 cases were filed against the Diocese of Orange in the window, the Register reported. Orange County Register (via BishopAccountability).

We checked this on September 15, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from December 18, 2024. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Mater Dei High School lawsuit

Not the school, exactly. Mater Dei is a diocesan high school, and every case above was brought against its owner, which in a California courtroom is The Roman Catholic Bishop of Orange, a corporation sole. The one on Chapman Avenue in Garden Grove that appointed the principal, hired the coaches and the counselors, kept the files, and, the complaints say, kept quiet. The theory isn't complicated. Put an adult in charge of teenagers and you have to watch him. When a kid says something, you have to act. The Bonilla complaint says school officials refused to report the counselor. Ruiz said a teacher intercepted a note and officials interviewed everyone and did nothing. The Register reported in 1994 that the Diocese had heard about Harris the December before it put him on leave. Where the record shows what the institution knew, the case is against the institution. And California's statute goes further: a defendant proven to have covered up childhood sexual assault can be made to pay up to three times the damages. Proven is the word. That's a lawyer's job, not a promise on a web page.

And the Diocese pays. It has not filed for bankruptcy, not in 2004 and not since, while Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, Sacramento, San Diego and Fresno all did. Its insurers funded the December 2024 settlement entirely, in its own words, and half of the $100 million it paid in 2005 was insurance money too. So the payer is there. The Diocese's own page has the whole of it, the parishes, Santa Margarita, Servite, the two priests who were convicted, at /diocese-of-orange-survivors. This page is one school. If your years were at Mater Dei, start here; the questions are the same and so are the survivors on the phone.

Your deadline: the California statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse at a Catholic high school

Until you turn 40. Or five years from the day you understood what it did to you, if that comes later. For anything done to a minor before 2024, that is the whole rule; Code of Civil Procedure 340.11 is the section, and it's why the birth-year question is on this page. Born in 1987 or later and the door is open on age alone. Born earlier, and it turns on discovery, which is a conversation, not a date. The Diocese isn't a public body, so there's no government claim to file first, and the statute says none is needed anyway.

Here's the honest part. The same law opened a window, January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2022, when anyone could file at any age; that's how the 2019 and 2022 complaints on this page got in. It's closed. Most of the Mater Dei record is the 1970s, '80s and '90s, so most of the people it describes have had their fortieth birthday, and what's left for them is the discovery rule plus one more thing the statute asks of anyone over 40 suing an institution: a showing that it knew or had reason to know, or failed to take reasonable steps. Plus certificates of merit from your lawyer and a licensed therapist before the Diocese is even served. That is a real path. The man the Diocese paid $3.5 million in December 2024 was describing 1978. But it's a path a lawyer has to look at first, and we won't pretend otherwise. (Anything on or after January 1, 2024 is different again: Code of Civil Procedure 340.1 sets no deadline for that at all.)

So, plainly. Mater Dei in the 2000s or later, and you almost certainly still have time. The 1990s, and probably. The 1980s or before, and you may. One call sorts out which, and a lawyer decides it, not us. What doesn't keep is the rest: who else was in the room, which parent went to the office, what the counselor's name was. That part is worth the call now.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never said it out loud. Not to a spouse, a priest, anyone. The man paid in December 2024 said he'd held it for 40 years.
You don't have a word for what it was. Half of you is sure it wouldn't count.
It was another student, an older kid, not an adult. Say so. The questions still work.
You already got something from the Diocese, in 2005 or later. Say that on the call, first thing. A release closes the claim it covers, not necessarily everything, and a lawyer has to read it.
You were told, more or less in so many words, that you'd wanted it. One of the 2007 plaintiffs said the school made her believe it was her fault, and that's in the record; it's part of how the thing worked.
You were a football manager, a stat girl, a choir kid, at a camp the school ran. Mater Dei's name on it? Then it counts.

Schools covered

Just the one school, Mater Dei High School, 1202 West Edinger Avenue in Santa Ana, California 92707, founded in 1950 and a Diocese of Orange school then and now. The classrooms, the principal's office, the gym, the football field, the choir room, a track camp, a team dinner off campus, anything that ran under Mater Dei's name. 1977 to the late 1990s for the people in the record above; any year for anyone else. A different Diocese of Orange school or parish, Santa Margarita, Servite, St. John the Baptist in Costa Mesa, a parish school anywhere in Orange County? The Diocese has its own page, /diocese-of-orange-survivors, with the record from all of them; it's the same defendant and the same questions. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Mater Dei High School?

You sue the Diocese of Orange, which owns it; in court that's The Roman Catholic Bishop of Orange. People have, over Mater Dei, since 1994, and the Diocese has settled rather than go to a verdict every time we can find: 2007, 2012, December 2024. Whether you can comes down to when you were born and, if before 1987, to discovery and what the school knew. That's what the questions above sort out.

What if I was born before 1987, does that mean the clock's already run on me?

Not necessarily. For anything before 2024 you have until your 40th birthday, or five years from the day you connected what happened to the harm if that lands later. Over 40 and suing the Diocese rather than the man, there's one more showing, that it knew or should have, and the Mater Dei record has a good deal on that question. The 2020 to 2022 window that let anyone file is closed. A lawyer decides the rest.

Was Michael Harris ever convicted?

No. Never charged, either; he denied the allegations. What exists is civil, all of it: the 1994 Price suit, the 2012 and 2024 settlements, and the Diocese of Orange's own list of credibly accused priests, which has his name on it. He was laicized in 2003. A name on that list is the Diocese's finding, not a court's.

Did Mater Dei know?

The plaintiffs say it did, and the record above is where they say so. A note intercepted by a teacher and nothing done, in the Andrade case. A complaint about the counselor that school officials refused to pass to police, in the Bonilla complaint. A mother who went to the Diocese about Harris in December 1993. The Diocese has settled without admitting any of it, and no court has found that it knew. That is the question a civil case asks.

How much is a Mater Dei settlement?

We won't put a number on yours; be wary of anyone who does. What's public is on this page: just shy of $7 million for four cases in 2007, $2 million in June 2012, $3.5 million in December 2024. Each was one set of facts. Yours is another, and a lawyer will tell you plainly after they've looked.

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 California 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.