CINCINNATI (OH)
Beacon Journal
JOHN NOLAN
Associated Press
CINCINNATI - Checks totaling $3.2 million have been mailed out to 117 people who say they were sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests, emptying a compensation fund the Archdiocese of Cincinnati created to help end a prosecutor's investigation.
An independent three-member panel created to administer the fund closed its work by mailing the checks Tuesday across the 19-county, southwestern Ohio archdiocese. The amount disbursed represents $3 million used to establish the fund in 2003 plus $200,000 in interest it had generated since then.
The panel was limited by the amount of the fund, said its chairman, Cincinnati lawyer Robert Stachler.
"You would like to pay some of them a lot more, but you didn't have the funds," he said.
Advocates for victims of clergy abuse criticized the Cincinnati archdiocese for not creating a bigger fund, and for requiring that people drop lawsuits against the church in order to participate.
"I think that fund was inadequate. It was put together without input from victims," said Mike Knellinger, co-founder of the Dayton chapter of the Voice of the Faithful, an activist group within the Catholic Church.
Posted by kshaw at March 9, 2005 05:37 AM