The settlement with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus is the largest one yet against a Catholic religious order, said Anchorage lawyer Ken Roosa, who called it “a great day” for the 110 victims.<\/p>\n
“These are people who were altar boys and altar servers and altar girls,” Roosa said. “These are people who tried to tell their story and in many instances were beaten or told to shut up and told, ‘How can you say such things about a man of God?'”<\/p>\n
The settlement does not require the order to admit fault, Roosa said. None of the priests were ever criminally charged.<\/p>\n
The settlement announcement is premature because some issues need to be finalized, said the Very Rev. John Whitney, provincial superior of the Society of Jesus, Oregon Province, which covers Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.<\/p>\n
“When those issues are resolved we will be available for a more complete discussion of the matter,” Whitney said in a prepared statement. He described the settlement announcement as “premature and detrimental.”<\/p>\n
Roosa said issues involving the plaintiffs had been resolved. The only issues that remained were with the religious order’s insurer, he said.<\/p>\n
Roosa provided The Associated Press with an e-mail sent Friday from Dick Hansen, the lawyer representing the religious order. It reads, “This email will confirm that a settlement has been reached. … The settlement calls for $50,000,000 to be paid to the plaintiffs\/claimants in exchange for releases of all claims against the Jesuit defendants.”<\/p>\n
In the e-mail, Hansen says he’s glad to “put this matter to rest.” Hansen did not immediately return a call from the AP seeking comment.<\/p>\n
The sexual abuse allegations involved 13 or 14 clerics and spanned nearly 30 years, from 1961 to 1987, Roosa said. The children’s ages ranged from 5 years to teenage.<\/p>\n
“Despite all this, no Catholic religious leader has yet to admit that problem priests were dumped in Alaska. For our clients, this settlement represents a long overdue acknowledgment of the truth of their stories of abuse, stories that until today were largely denied and belittled by apologists for the abusers,” Roosa said.<\/p>\n
The Catholic Church first was notified of the Alaska cases of abuse in 2002, Roosa said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}