The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston agreed Tuesday to pay $85 million to settle more than 500 lawsuits from people who claim that priests abused them, a lead attorney in the cases said. It would be the largest known payout by a U.S. diocese to settle molestation charges.
The deal was reached after months of negotiations and hinged on approval by Superior Court Judge Constance Sweeney. NBC’s Alison Kartevold reported late Tuesday afternoon that the judge had issued a “memorandum of understanding.”
One lawyer for the alleged victims said the settlement is affirmation and closure in the long and arduous case.
“It was very painful for a lot of people to have to go through this process and hopefully some healing is going to take place for some victims,” said Mitchell Garabedian, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. “Healing that will represent peace to them and let them get on with their lives to a certain degree.”
The settlement, which was first reported by The Associated Press, would mark a major step toward quieting the crisis that has torn at the fabric of America’s fourth-largest archdiocese for nearly two years, and spread throughout the country and beyond.
Agreement terms
Under the terms of the agreement:
Victims have a 37-day window of participation in the settlement; lawyers have seven days to get the information to the plaintiffs, and the victims then have 30 days to opt in or out of the settlement.
Their cases will then go to arbitration, where the amount of individual awards will be decided by a mediator based on type and duration of abuse and injury suffered.
Victims would receive awards ranging from $80,000 to $300,000.
The total settlement pool would be reduced proportionately based on the percentage of victims who do not participate. For example, if 10 percent of victims opt out of the settlement, the total payout would be reduced by 10 percent.
Parents who filed lawsuits claiming that their children were abused would receive $20,000.
The archdiocese will pay for psychological counseling for victims for as long as they want treatment.
An undetermined number of victims will be named to advisory boards to the church, including a board that reviews complaints against priests.
The $85 million deal comes about a month after the archdiocese put a $55 million offer on the table, leading to intensified talks among a small group of lawyers who were negotiating on behalf of 552 alleged victims.
‘Terrible, horrific mistakes'
“There’s no way that you can possibly compensate people for what has been taken away from them,” MacLeish said. “But this, for some, will be recognition by the archdiocese that terrible, horrific mistakes were made by church leadership, and this is a form of repentance by the church.”
David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, agreed. “For many victims, some kind of official, public acknowledgment that ‘We were harmed’ can be a real step toward healing,” he said.
Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the deal “demonstrates that the church is committed to working out just settlements which seek to meet, to the extent possible, the needs of people who have suffered terribly.”
Closed-door meeting
Many of the final details of the deal were worked out during a closed-door meeting Sunday night among lawyers — attended by Archbishop Sean O’Malley — that went on for hours and into early Monday morning.
“There’s no way that you can possibly compensate people for what has been taken away from them. But this, for some, will be recognition by the archdiocese that terrible, horrific mistakes were made by church leadership, and this is a form of repentance by the church,” MacLeish said.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs told NBC News that the settlement closely resembled an offer O’Malley made over the weekend.
One of the attorneys described O’Malley as the “instrumental catalyst” in reaching the settlement. The archbishop understood the emotions of the victims and listened intently to what the attorneys had to say, this lawyer said.
Biggest payout ever
The payouts would represent the largest offer to settle allegations of clergy abuse since the scandal broke in early 2002. In June, the Archdiocese of Louisville, Ky., agreed to pay $25.7 million to 243 people who said they were abused.
A resolution to the suits had been elusive since the scandal exploded in January 2002 with the release of court documents in the case of the Rev. John Geoghan, who was moved from parish to parish despite evidence that he had molested children.
Allegations against dozens of other priests soon came to light, and hundreds of lawsuits were filed against the Boston Archdiocese.
Priest personnel files, made public because of the Boston lawsuits, held sordid and shocking allegations: that a priest pulled boys out of religious classes and raped them in a confessional, that another fathered two children and left the children’s mother alone as she overdosed, that another seduced girls studying to become nuns by telling them he was “the second coming of Christ.”
The crisis put every U.S. diocese under new scrutiny.
Priests removed from parishes
Because of molestation claims, at least 325 of America’s 46,000 priests were removed from duty or resigned in the year after the Geoghan case. Cardinal Bernard Law resigned as archbishop of Boston in December, giving up his post as spiritual leader to 2.1 million Catholics because of his mishandling of abuse cases.
The appointment of his successor, O’Malley, a Capuchin Franciscan friar known for helping other dioceses recover from sex abuse scandals, brought new hope in July.
Criminal charges were filed against some priests as a result of the scandal, but Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly said no church leaders could be charged for supervisory lapses under weak child protection laws in effect at the time.
Reilly, in a report issued in July after a 16-month investigation, estimated that more than 1,000 children were likely victimized by more than 235 priests from 1940 to 2000 as church officials shifted priests from parish to parish, rather than removing them from ministry.
He said the abuse was allowed to continue because of an “institutional acceptance” and a “massive, inexcusable failure” by church leaders to do anything about it.
In September 2002, the Boston archdiocese agreed to a $10 million settlement for 86 victims of Geoghan, who was ousted from the priesthood and sentenced to prison for child molestation.
Geoghan, 68, was killed last month in prison, allegedly by another inmate who authorities say plotted the attack for more than a month.
NBC Newschannel in Boston, NBC producer Alison Kartevold in Boston, The Associated Press contributed to this report.