LDS Church and the Boy Scout Bankruptcy Case

Afew days ago, many saw the arresting headlines that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has agreed to pay an enormous amount of money -- a quarter of a billion dollars -- to survivors of sexual abuse by Boy Scouts of America leaders. It's a complicated legal situation, and an impossibly sad one, and I'll do my best to make it clear what's happening and why. (I'm a lawyer, but not a bankruptcy lawyer, and bankruptcy law is quite complicated, so I'm going to leave out a lot of legal nuances.)