OAN Staff James Meyers
9:50 AM – Thursday, October 17, 2024
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $880 million to victims of clergy sexual abuse that goes decades back in the past, in what an attorney said was the largest single child sex abuser settlement with a Catholic archdiocese.
After the startling announcement of the agreement in principle on Wednesday, Archbishop José H. Gomez said in a statement, “I am sorry for every one of these incidents, from the bottom of my heart.”
“My hope is that this settlement will provide some measure of healing for what these men and women have suffered,” Gomez added.
“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.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, attorneys for 1,353 people who claimed they suffered terrible abuse at the hands of local Catholic priests agreed to a settlement after several months of intense negotiations with the archdiocese.
The archdiocese has previously paid $740 million to victims in various settlements and had pledged to better protect its church members, which would result in the settlement paying out a total of more than $1.5 billion, the outlet said.
The latest settlement concludes almost 25 years of litigation against the most populous archdiocese in the United States.
Additionally, attorneys in the Plaintiffs’ Liaison Committee said in a joint statement, “While there is no amount of money that can replace what was taken from these 1,353 brave individuals who have suffered in silence for decades, there is justice in accountability.”
Furthermore, in the settlement, the plaintiffs will begin a process that will not involve the archdiocese to allocate the settlement amount among the participants.
The attorney who led the negotiations, Morgan Stewart, said that the settlement is the biggest single child sex abuse settlement with a Catholic archdiocese.
“These survivors have suffered for decades in the aftermath of the abuse. Dozens of the survivors have died. They are aging, and many of those with knowledge of the abuse within the church are too. It was time to get this resolved,” Stewart told the Los Angeles Times.
Meanwhile, the settlement will be funded by archdiocese investments, bank financing, accumulated reserves, and other assets.
The archdiocese also stated other certain religious orders and others named in the litigation will also cover a portion of the settlement, the LA Times stated.
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