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LOS ANGELES - The leader of the largest United States Roman Catholic archdiocese apologised yesterday for what he called a "terrible sin and crime" as the church confirmed it would pay a record US$660 million ($850 million) to people who were sexually abused by priests.
Facing trial today over abuse allegations dating as far back as the 1940s, the Archdiocese led by Cardinal Roger Mahony agreed to pay 508 victims the largest-ever group settlement.
"I have come to understand far more deeply that I ever could the impact of this terrible sin and crime that has affected their lives," said Mahony.
"There really is no way to go back and give them that innocence that was taken from them. Once again, I apologise to anyone who has been offended, who has been abused. It should not have happened, and it will not happen again."
The settlement was the latest chapter in a clergy abuse scandal that has rocked the Church worldwide, damaging its moral standing and forcing five US diocese to seek bankruptcy protection.
Victims expressed a variety of emotions over the settlement.
Steve Sanchez, 47, one of 12 victims who had been scheduled to go to trial, said he had mixed feelings. "There's a group of victims who have been fighting this publicly and ready to take on the church publicly, probably a handful. At the same time there is a large group of victims who did not want to go through with the process, being in the public." Sanchez, a financial planner, said he and his brother were abused by Los Angeles priest Clinton Hagenbach, who died in 1987.
Nurse Mary Ferrell, 59, who was abused as a girl starting in the late 1950s, said the payment would not ease all her suffering. "I appreciate the size of it because I think it shows the culpability and guilt of the Catholic Church. It will change my life in that my life will become easier financially, but I don't think that it is going to cure all the pain and suffering."
Tod Tamberg, a spokesman for the Los Angeles archdiocese, said Mahony would be in court today as lawyers seek the judges' approval of the settlement.
Individual victims will receive between US$100,000 and US$4 million each, said plaintiff lawyer Ray Boucher. A lawyer for the church said a third to half of settlements typically goes to plaintiffs' lawyers as compensation in contingency cases, although the lawyers declined to discuss their fees.
Michael Hennigan, lawyer for the archdiocese, expects payments by the end of the year. The church will sell nonessential property, including the Los Angeles Archdiocese headquarters and perhaps some high schools, to raise the funds, he said.
Hennigan said the church would fund about US$250 million of the US$660 million settlement. The rest will come from insurers including Chubb, AIG Corp, Allianz and Fireman's Fund with whom the church holds general liability policies as well as several Catholic religious orders. Mahony said that vital properties and functions of the Church will not be affected.
The Catholic Church has faced abuse allegations worldwide over the past decade. Victims have alleged that church leaders often knew of the abuse but did not do enough to stop it.
Some US diocese have reached financial settlements with victims. The Archdiocese of Boston, where the US scandal erupted in 2002, reached a 2003 deal for 550 people worth US485 million. But victims have had special leverage in California because state legislators authorised an exception to the statute of limitations for old abuse complaints.
- REUTERS
