The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $880m to 1,353 individuals who alleged that they had been sexually abused as youngsters by Catholic clergymen, within the largest settlement by a US diocese over decades-old abuse claims.
Archbishop Jose H Gomez expressed sorrow for the abuse in saying the settlement on Wednesday.
“I’m sorry for each considered one of these incidents, from the underside of my coronary heart,” Gomez mentioned in an announcement. “My hope is that this settlement will present some measure of therapeutic for what these women and men have suffered.”
The archdiocese started mediating the abuse claims after California enacted a legislation that allowed new lawsuits to be based mostly on previous situations of sexual abuse involving minors.
The California legislation and related legal guidelines in different states have pushed many giant Catholic organizations to hunt chapter safety across the US. In California, the archdiocese of San Francisco and the dioceses of Oakland and San Diego have filed for chapter to resolve related abuse claims.
The Los Angeles archdiocese reached its settlement with out submitting for chapter. Gomez mentioned the archdiocese would be capable to pay victims from money reserves, investments, loans and contributions from different non secular organizations that had been named in lawsuits. The funds won’t influence the archdiocese’s mission of “serving the poor and susceptible in our communities”, Gomez mentioned.
Attorneys for the archdiocese and the plaintiffs’ liaison counsel representing abuse claimants issued a joint assertion on Wednesday thanking survivors for coming ahead with their tales and making certain that related abuse won’t happen sooner or later.
“Whereas there isn’t a amount of cash that may substitute what was taken from these 1,353 courageous people who’ve suffered in silence for many years, there’s justice in accountability,” the plaintiffs’ liaison counsel mentioned in a joint assertion.
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