UNITED STATES
Mirror
By Reid Sexton
PAEDOPHILE priests and bishops have cost America's Roman Catholic Church its reputation and at least £450million.
Last month church leaders in Kentucky set up a £67million fund to pay at least 200 victims of abuse spanning 50 years.
The notorious Boston Archdiocese had already handed over £48million in 2003 to settle more than 500 lawsuits. Several of its prominent clergy were jailed.
One, defrocked priest John Geoghan, was strangled in prison by an inmate serving a life sentence. The scandal has forced at least two dioceses into bankruptcy, with more facing financial ruin. It was re-ignited when the former Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Bernard Law, gave mass in Vatican City after the death of Pope John Paul II