Catholic Diocese Settles Record $100 Million to Clergy Abuse Victims
In a record pay-off settlement by an American Diocese, the Catholic Roman Catholic diocese of Orange agreed to pay some $100 million to settle accounts with 87 sexually molested victims of its past priests
In a record pay-off settlement by an American Diocese, the Catholic Roman Catholic diocese of Orange agreed to pay some $100 million to settle accounts with 87 sexually molested victims of its past priests, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2004.
While the exact amount has been disclosed, members of each side of the debate said an average of $1.1 million has been settled to each of the victims involved in the massive case.
According to legal observers, the record settlement, which far surpasses the $85 million paid by the Boston Archdiocese earlier in the year to its 552 victims, will likely influence the outcomes of pending cases in dioceses across America.
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Bishop Tod D. Brown of Orange County, California, said the agreement was “both fair and compassionate,” and said he plans to write letters to each victim “personally seeking forgiveness and reconciliation.”
"We will be able to fairly compensate the victims in a way that allows our church to continue its ministry of service to the entire community," Brown said following the case’s settlement Thursday evening.
According to Brown, the massive settlement will be paid without bankrupting its diocese or requiring any of its parishes or schools to be closed. The only property that will be sold is the diocese’s 17-acre headquarters. The money will also come from a combination of insurance, cash reserves, loans on property and investments.
According to the Los Angeles Times, “the deal will likely have its greatest impact on the neighboring Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which is trying to settle 544 molestation claims….the size of the Orange County agreement will provide a benchmark for future settlements.”
"It's like a market is being established for [clergy abuse] settlements, and the price can go up or down," said Loyola Law School professor Georgene Vairo, to the LA Times on Friday.
"It's like a gigantic EBay" where recent sales can dictate prices of similar items, said Patrick J. Schiltz, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, Minn, to the Times. He called the $100-million settlement "an astonishing amount of money."
The deal settles sexual molestation allegations against 30 clergymen and about a dozen other church employees. Some of the cases date back as far as the 1930; some as recent as the 80s. In most cases, clergymen were found to have molested boys under the age of 13; in other cases, clergymen were found guilty of paying for the abortion fees of teenage girls they impregnated during their tenure.
In addition to the financial settlement, Bishop Brown agreed to let the court decide if any confidential personal files of the accused priests would be made public. The diocese gave those files to the plaintiff’s attorneys on the basis that the files would be kept secret, but some of the plaintiffs maintained that the release of those files are a key to the settlement.
According to the prosecutors and attorneys for the victims, the release of those files was the most significant part of the settlement.
"The significant thing about the settlement is that the documents are not sealed," said Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk who now works as a consultant for attorneys suing the Catholic Church in sexual abuse cases, to the LA times.
Joelle Casteix, one of the alleged victims of the Orange County settlement, said to the LA Times that the selling of the headquarters would carry a great deal of symbolic significance, similar to the decision by the Boston Archdiocese to sell its bishop's mansion and surrounding property earlier this year for $99.4 million.
"It will be a sign of a new age in the diocese and a new way of running the faith community in Orange County," Casteix said in a comment to LA Times.
However, according to David Clohessy, executive director of the national Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, the Orange County agreement is probably nothing more than good business.
"It's always tempting to read a lot into a settlement, and I think that's dangerous," Clohessy said to the LA Times.
"I think fundamentally they are just business decisions. They don't symbolize the scales falling from a bishop's eyes and suddenly him getting it or becoming compassionate,” he added.
