Originally published at The Catholic Thing
The agreement in principle of $880 million is to compensate more than a thousand decades-old claims of childhood sexual abuse. In a joint statement from archdiocesan counsel and a committee of plaintiffs’ lawyers, the settlement caps a yearlong mediation process that followed California’s three-year revival of civil claims of past sexual abuse involving minors. The 1,353 claims to be compensated by the agreement are based on allegations against priests, other clergy, women religious, and lay people from the archdiocese, along with religious order priests and clergy from other dioceses who were serving in the archdiocese.
