The San Francisco Archdiocese has agreed to pay $395 million to settle roughly 530 clergy sex abuse claims — the largest per-survivor payout ever recorded in a Catholic diocesan bankruptcy — and, for the first time, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone will be required to publish a list of accused priests, a disclosure he has resisted while every other California diocese complied.

Announced Monday by plaintiffs' attorney Jeff Anderson, the proposed settlement ends nearly three years of bankruptcy proceedings triggered by a 2019 California law that temporarily lifted statutes of limitations on childhood sex abuse claims. Beyond a payout averaging roughly $745,000 per survivor, the deal extracts structural concessions the Archdiocese had refused to grant voluntarily: a ban on future nondisclosure agreements, a survivor seat on the church's internal review board, and an independent audit of internal church records to be published on the Archdiocese's own website. The settlement is not final — survivors must vote on it, and U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali must sign off — but advocates say it marks a genuine shift in power.

For Brigid Crotty, Monday's announcement was the first time she had ever spoken publicly about what happened to her.

"I've carried this for 55 years," Crotty told NBC Bay Area reporters at a press conference. "It has been a solitary confinement so to speak, in silence and darkness."

Crotty said she worked in a San Francisco Catholic school for years without telling any of her colleagues she had been abused by a priest as a child. She was among the more than 530 survivors whose claims are covered by the proposed settlement — people who came forward after California's Child Victims Act of 2019 created a three-year window to file civil lawsuits regardless of when the abuse occurred. That window unleashed a flood of litigation that drove Catholic dioceses across the state into bankruptcy, including San Francisco's in 2023.

The $395 million figure works out to roughly $745,000 per survivor on average, though the actual distribution to each plaintiff will be determined through a separate protocol developed by the survivors' creditors committee in bankruptcy court. Attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents hundreds of the plaintiffs, called it the largest per-survivor settlement in the history of any Catholic diocesan bankruptcy in the United States.

"We stand proudly with over 200 of those brave souls who have persisted collectively, requiring a real reckoning," Anderson said Monday. "A real monetary reckoning. Real accountability."

Beyond the money, the deal's transparency provisions carry particular weight in San Francisco. While every other Catholic diocese in California has published a list of clergy members it considers credibly accused of abusing children, Cordileone has declined to do so since taking over the Archdiocese in 2012. The settlement will force him to publish a partial list — though the exact criteria for who makes the list remain unspecified.

Under the agreement, Cordileone must also hand over internal church records to an independent child protection consultant, whose findings will be published on the Archdiocese website. Existing nondisclosure agreements binding survivors will be dissolved, and new confidentiality agreements in abuse cases will be banned. A survivor will be placed on the Archdiocese's review board that evaluates clergy abuse allegations. Cordileone has also agreed to write a personal letter of apology to each of the more than 530 survivors.

Jennifer Stein, an attorney with Jeff Anderson and Associates, said the deal rebalances a relationship that had long favored the institution over its victims. "Now, the survivors have power, have a voice, and are being heard," Stein said. "The Archdiocese is finally held accountable and required to be transparent in a way they never have been."

The Archdiocese declined to be interviewed on camera but issued a statement framing the settlement in pastoral terms. "The entire Catholic family is called to unite and share in the work of making amends through this proposed settlement," Cordileone said in the statement. "We have a moral obligation to bring some level of healing and reconciliation to those who deserve our unwavering respect, attention and prayers."

Finalizing the settlement could still take months. Each of the more than 530 survivors must vote to approve or reject the proposal before it goes to Judge Montali for confirmation. Anderson noted that the agreement also preserves survivors' ability to pursue claims against some of the Archdiocese's insurers separately.

For Crotty, the outcome is measured less in dollars than in what it might prevent. "If by speaking out I can somehow see to it that no other innocents are broken the way I was broken," she said, "then it will all be somehow worth it."