The Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $880 million to settle childhood sex abuse claims by more than 1,300 alleged victims, attorneys and the diocese announced on Wednesday Oct. 16.
The settlement brings to about $1.5 billion the amount paid out by the archdiocese to resolve sex abuse cases over the past two decades.
The latest settlement would resolve claims filed against the archdiocese following the enactment of Assembly Bill 218, which temporarily waived the statute of limitations for alleged victims to seek damages in sex abuse cases.
“I am sorry for every one of these incidents, from the bottom of my heart,” Archbishop José Gomez wrote in a message Wednesday announcing the proposed settlement. “My hope is that this settlement will provide some measure of healing for what these men and women have suffered.
He went on, “I believe that we have come to a resolution of these claims that will provide just compensation to the survivor-victims of these past abuses while also allowing the archdiocese to continue to carry out our ministries to the faithful and our social programs serving the poor and vulnerable in our communities.”
Dan McNevin, a California leader and board member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), called Wednesday’s settlement agreement “a significant piece of justice for survivors.”
While SNAP is happy that the survivors involved in this settlement will now be able to start the process of healing and reaching closure, McNevin said no amount of money will ever truly be enough.
“There is no number that will ever compensate someone for what was done to them as children,” he said.
Attorneys representing the 1,354 claimants called the agreement “the largest single child sex abuse settlement with a Catholic archdiocese.” The Los Angeles Archdiocese in 2007 paid out $660 million to settle claims of about 500 alleged victims.
“These are damaged people,” McNevin said of the victims. “(Childhood sex abuse) is a form of soul murder. These people are going to have to put their lives back together. And the fact that now each will receive something … is only the start of their healing. This is just the beginning. We’re in the second inning of a double-header. This is barely the start.”
He went on, “We hope that society understands that this settlement doesn’t signal the end of anything. It signals the beginning for some. … We still don’t know if the church is a safe place.”
He said the L.A. Archdiocese is the largest Catholic Archdiocese in the U.S. and thousands of sex abuse victims live, or once lived, in the Los Angeles area.
By his count, there are still about 500 cases of alleged sexual abuse by priests who have worked for the L.A. Archdiocese that have not been resolved.
“We’re not done with Los Angeles, but we’re getting more done,” McNevin said.
“This is only a down payment on what must eventually occur,” McNevin said about Wednesday’s settlement.
Unlike other archdioceses in California, the L.A. Archdiocese has not declared bankruptcy.
McNevin had this to say about the L.A. Archdiocese’s ability to pay the settlements: “L.A. is a vastly rich Archdiocese. It’s got thousands of acres of land and many hundreds of pieces of properties. … It owns income-producing assets that help it pay bills and make it wealthy.”
“The good news is that survivors will get some measure of justice and support and healing in the form of compensation sooner than those who are in places where there are bankruptcies,” he said.
Dr. Heather Banis, Victims Assistance Ministry coordinator for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said “the number of plaintiffs of those harmed is staggering.”
“Think of all those people who’ve been harmed,” she said. “That’s very, very sad and it’s painful.”
Still, Banis said she hoped the settlement would bring “peace and some relief to those who’ve been harmed.”
She didn’t know the details about the victims’ ages or locations. “My understanding would be that the abuse happened primarily here,” Banis said. “I don’t know the specifics of all the legal claims.”
She added: ”Outside of the settlement, we certainly have matters where a priest of Los Angeles may have harmed a child in another diocese or even country, but the majority of the time it happened here, in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.”
Banis noted that “If there was a retreat and they were up in the mountains, they might have technically been in the Diocese of San Bernardino, but it was a priest from Los Angeles who is perpetrating the harm.”
In the statement from the church, Gomez said, “As you know, for many years now the archdiocese has been confronting the consequences of past abuse by priests, clergy, and others working in the church,” Gomez wrote in his message. “We provide pastoral care and financial support for survivor-victims to assist in their healing. We enforce strict background and reporting requirements, and we have established extensive training programs to protect young people and to ensure safe environments in our parishes, schools, and other ministries.
“Today, as a result of these reforms, new cases of sexual misconduct by priests and clergy involving minors are rare in the Archdiocese. No one who has been found to have harmed a minor is serving in ministry at this time. And I promise: we will remain vigilant.”
According to Gomez, the settlement will be paid through archdiocese “reserves, investments and loans,” along with other assets and payments by select religious orders involved in the cases. He stressed that “no designated donations to parishes or schools or to archdiocesan-wide collections and campaigns” will be used to fund the settlement.
“The massive amount of this settlement reflects the amount of grievous harm done to vulnerable children and the decades of neglect, complicity and cover-up by the archdiocese which allowed known serial predators to inflict this harm,” attorney Morgan A. Stewart said in a statement. “I encourage other religious institutions within the Catholic Church to meet their responsibilities and take accountability.”
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