US clerical abuse victims in €480m settlement

VICTIMS of clerical sex abuse in the United States have claimed that a€478 million settlement by the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles will not make the pain end for victims.

The landmark $660m deal expected to be formallyannounced today is to pay out more than $1.3m (€940,000) to each of about 500 victims. The settlement has been reached ahead of a case that was to go before judges in California today, in which 12 plaintiffs claiming they were abused by a priest of the archdiocesebefore he died in the late 1980s.

After Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in LA yesterday, Mary Grant, a spokeswoman for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said: “This is not over. Church officials would like to think that this settlement means everything is OK... but this is not a magic wand.”