June 04, 2005

Victims must still deal with memories

KENTUCKY
Cincinnati Post

By Courtney Kinney
Post staff reporter

Money can help the victims of sexual abuse, but it can't always heal wounds.

That's the opinion of someone who should know.

Kay Montgomery, abused as a teen-ager in the 1960s by a priest from Blessed Sacrament Church in Fort Mitchell, won a settlement from the Diocese in Covington in January. Her pain hasn't gone away.

"It won't change their life in any dramatic way," Montgomery, now a Lexington homemaker, said Friday of the Diocese of Covington's $120 million settlement agreement in a class action lawsuit by abuse victims.

Her earlier settlement, the terms of which were not disclosed, was believed to be the largest settlement up to that time. What happened, she said, still happened. All the money does is allow victims to get help, Montgomery said.

"For a few days, it might make them feel like it's a relief, it's over," Montgomery said. "But they're not going to wake up tomorrow and feel like, 'Oh, things are so different and I can go on and this never happened.' It's not going to change anything. They're still going to have to deal with the memories, the trauma, the flashbacks."

Posted by kshaw at June 4, 2005 04:24 AM