Diocese settles sex abuse claims for $25m

ONE of the largest collections of civil actions against the Roman Catholic church came to a close when the Archdiocese of Louisville agreed to pay $25.7 million to 243 people who accuse d priests and employees of child sexual abuse.

Archbishop Thomas Kelly addressed victims on Tuesday night as the settlement was announced.

"I apologise again for what we did or failed to do that led to your abuse," Archbishop Kelly said. "I hope this settlement is a sign of our willingness to help you in your healing."

The settlement was one of the largest in the US to come out of an archdiocese's coffers, the plaintiffs' attorney William McMurry said. Financial disclosure reports listed the archdiocese liquid assets at $48m, Mr McMurry said.

That, he said, "speaks volumes about the legitimacy of those lawsuits".

For more than a year, the archdiocese has faced a sex abuse scandal in which dozens of its priests and several other employees were accused. The archdiocese was inundated with lawsuits filed by people who accused it of covering up thealleged abuse or doing nothing to stop it. Many of the lawsuits were based on decades-old revelations.

The massive settlement will seriously damage the archdiocese.

"Our ability to serve the poor, to serve the community will be impacted negatively by this amount of litigation," said Brian Reynolds, chief administrative officer of the archdiocese. "However it is also imperative that these men and women were also hurt and need our support as well."

Mary Miller, 40, whose uncle, the Reverend Louis Miller, was convicted of sexually abusing her and 28 others as children, said the settlement "could have been $250 million it's never going to change what happened".