IOWA
Quad-City Times
By Todd Ruger
A retired priest of the Catholic Diocese of Davenport agreed Monday to pay a confidential sum of money to settle the three remaining civil lawsuits by men accusing him of sexually abusing them as children decades ago.
The Rev. Francis Bass, 82, who served as a parish priest in the diocese from 1948 to 1992, apologized in a court statement filed Monday in the lawsuit brought by Steven Davis of Wisconsin in 2003.
To Steven Davis and others I may have harmed, I apologize, Bass said in a statement made under oath. I hope this statement will assist in the healing process.
The statement by Bass, who at one time faced five lawsuits, makes him the second priest of the diocese to settle a civil lawsuit alleging sexual abuse.
Posted by kshaw at May 17, 2005 07:23 AM