COVINGTON (KY)
Pioneer Press
BRETT BARROUQUERE
Associated Press
COVINGTON, Ky. - A proposed multimillion-dollar priest sexual abuse settlement would impose staggering costs on the Catholic diocese here - but many parishioners at Sunday Mass said they understood the need to compensate victims of decades of abuse.
To Char Allen, attending Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of The Assumption, the settlement means the victims get the help they need and the issue is no longer hanging over the diocese. The victims deserve to be compensated by the diocese because the priests involved used the diocese to cover their activities, he said.
"I can't imagine going through that, being a victim of your own faith," Allen said.
The Diocese of Covington announced Friday it was pledging $120 million, the nation's largest such settlement, to end a two-year-old class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 100 alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests. The settlement still needs approval by a judge.
The lawsuit accuses the diocese, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, of a 50-year cover-up of sexual abuse by priests and others.
Posted by kshaw at June 5, 2005 07:10 PM