SAN DIEGO — The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego announced Thursday that it plans to return to U.S. bankruptcy court to help manage its response to hundreds of lawsuits filed by people who say they were sexually assaulted by Catholic priests when they were young.

It is the second time San Diego church officials have gone to bankruptcy court to limit damage from claims from child sex-abuse victims.

Cardinal Robert McElroy, who serves as bishop to the 1.4 million Catholics in San Diego and Imperial counties, alerted parishioners to the decision in an open letter that was publicly released by the diocese on Thursday.

The legal action, which is expected to be filed Monday, comes after church officials acknowledged last year that they were considering a return to bankruptcy court and began mediation with survivors.

“For the past year, the Diocese has held substantive and helpful negotiations with the attorneys representing the victims of abuse, and I, in collaboration with the leadership of the Diocese, have come to the conclusion that this is the moment to enter formally into bankruptcy and continue negotiations as part of the bankruptcy process,” McElroy wrote.

Lawyers representing the 400-plus plaintiffs in San Diego Superior Court lawsuits said the decision shows the diocese is more interested in protecting its assets than protecting the people who attended its schools and services.

“After nearly a year of mediation, we were hoping that child sexual abuse survivors, the Diocese and its insurer would have been able to reach a settlement and an agreed-to plan for compensating victims through the inevitable bankruptcy announced by the Diocese about a year ago,” plaintiffs’ attorney Irwin Zalkin said.

“Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened.”

Plaintiffs’ lawyers said the Catholic Diocese of San Diego is the 13th diocese across the country to seek bankruptcy protection from sexual-abuse survivors.

“It has become very clear that these Catholic Diocese and their insurers have adopted a national strategy to use Chapter 11 bankruptcies to resolve child sexual abuse cases in a way that reduces the compensation paid to survivors,” said attorney Devin Storey, a Zalkin law partner who also represents victims.

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