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| leftwing extremist |
CHICAGO - A prominent attorney for victims of sexual abuse by clergy says the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has paid $80 million to clients represented by his law firm alone since 2000.
Jeff Anderson told reporters in Chicago Tuesday it's the first time he's publicly revealed a total sum of settlement payments to 160 survivors by nearly 50 abusers.
The figure doesn't include payments to survivors represented by other law firms. A message seeking comment from the archdiocese wasn't immediately returned.
The Minnesota-based lawyer says the payments averaged $500,000 per victim, with some running into the millions.
Anderson says the archdiocese fought litigation throughout the `90s but slowly developed a settlement process. He called the relationship with the archdiocese "arduous and inconsistent." But he said there's been "a sea change" in its approach in recent decades.
"160 survivors by nearly 50 abusers", how many didn't survive?
ReplyDeleteAlthough i am no longer a fan of my church the way it stands today,but doesn't this fall under attorney-client privledge ?
ReplyDeleteWho knows.
DeleteSo the diocese has paid out more than $80 million for the sexual adventures of priests in the Chicago diocese. Last week St. Barnabas announced in their weekly bulletin that a second collection will be taken next Sunday to offset the decline in the number of projected donations, by their estimates, $47 thousand year to date. Are these things related? Who would admit it if they were? Like any other profession, the diocese should require parish priests to carry malpractice insurance. It shouldn't fall on the faithful to underwrite the costs imposed by courts for the dalliances of priests, gay or straight. Recent disclosures regarding the late Cardinal Bernadine, and the company he kept while in Cincinnati reveal that accusations that were made by an abuse victim shortly before his death are true. That case was settled, as discreetly as possible and the faithful continued on as usual, contributing to donate and fund the church and parochial schools as though the sexual abuse allegations were nothing more than vicious attacks on our pastoral leaders. So is there a decline in the donations from parishioners? My recollection of the teachings in the Baltimore Cathechism never mentioned anything about allowance for sexual indiscretion on the part of parish priests. All of this has been outed in the last few years and perhaps its time for the Diocese to require its priests to start carrying malpractice insurance to cover their extracurricular activities. And while they're at it, maybe accelerate defrocking these priests instead of reassigning them to locations where the faithful find out too late about their sexual appetites.
ReplyDeleteMost of the priest are very good, caring and very overworked. The problem centers on just a few who were ordained for all the wrong reasons.
DeleteThere are some big problems with the Cardinals and bishops. Many of them are hesitant to speak up.
DeleteSadly More than just a few.
DeleteBlame the dead priest or the priest too feeble to defend himself for something that never happened. The archdiocese won't fight back. They'll just pay up.
ReplyDelete"for something that never happened"? Says who?
Deletewhen your kid comes home from school or church, psychologically traumatized and withdrawn, lets just stick our head in the sand and pretend he's probably just going through a phase. Never happened? C'mon, wake up. Or resign yourself to the fact that the faithful will continue to fork out to bail these predators out.
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