Parties to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Norwich bankruptcy are set to appear Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Hartford, where a judge has ordered a new round of mediation in the three-year-old case.

Judge James Tancredi issued the order last Wednesday, noting a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision bearing on Chapter 11 reorganizations had altered the tenor of the bankruptcy proceedings.

“The dynamics among the Parties, once largely consensual when joint plans were being proposed, appear now to be fractured,” Tancredi wrote in his order. “Although a global settlement may remain elusive, the Court believes that mediation will likely set the Parties on the path to resolution of their disputes.”

He appointed a retired U.S. bankruptcy judge, Joan Feeney, as mediator.

Following Tancredi’s order, the diocese on Friday requested that he schedule a status conference to discuss the scope of the new round of mediation. That conference was scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Thursday.

Facing multiple lawsuits from a group of more than 140 alleged victims of sexual abuse by diocesan priests and employees, the Norwich diocese filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2021.

Earlier this month, the diocese filed a new Chapter 11 reorganization plan it said would provide about $30 million in payments to victims. A plan the diocese and a sexual assault victims’ group, the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, had previously agreed upon called for more than $32 million in payments.

In a court filing Friday, the committee, represented by attorney Stephen Kindseth, disputed the diocese’s characterization of its new plan and its claims that the committee had abandoned the agreed-upon plan in favor of one of its own while refusing to engage in further discussions.

The committee says the diocese’s new plan shows the diocese reduced its previously agreed-upon contributions to the compensation fund for survivors of sexual abuse by more than $2 million and “purports to establish that it no longer has the funds to pay the amounts it previously agreed to pay ... because it must now pay more to its bankruptcy attorneys and other professionals.”

According to the committee, filings in the case show the diocese’s “professionals” have so far been paid nearly $5.4 million, claim to be owed another nearly $1.9 million through July 2024 and expect to incur more than an additional $1 million through the end of 2025.

The committee noted the diocese has incurred more expense by retaining a public relations firm, which, the committee says, conveyed deceptive claims about the committee’s withdrawal from the agreed-upon plan.

Kindseth writes in the committee’s filing that the Supreme Court’s June 27 decision in a class-action lawsuit against Purdue Pharma rendered the joint plan “unconfirmable,” causing the committee to withdraw from it. The committee says it tried to have discussions with the diocese in April in anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling but that the diocese declined.

The committee filed its own plan June 27.

In its request for a status conference, the diocese announces its intention to object to nearly all of the survivors’ claims of sexual abuse, a move Kindseth’s filing describes as “a perverse negotiation tactic.”

New London attorney Kelly Reardon, who represents some 30 survivors, reacted strongly to the diocese’s plan in a phone interview Wednesday.

“The sad and disgraceful part of this from my perspective is that the diocese, three years after filing bankruptcy, has decided to wage an attack on the survivors,” Reardon said. “They’re now threatening to litigate all of the abuse claims that have been filed in an effort to intimidate the victims. ... This is the exact opposite of what Bishop (Michael) Cote said the bankruptcy case was intended to do.”

Feeney, the retired bankruptcy judge appointed mediator, served almost 27 years on the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Massachusetts before joining JAMS, a private firm providing dispute resolution services. According to Tancredi’s order, the parties to the bankruptcy case will be referred to her for nonbinding mediation for a period of one week.

The diocese is ordered to pay Feeney’s compensation, at the hourly rate of $725, and her expenses.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com