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	Diocese Pays out $79 Million in Sex Case Associated Press, carried in Kypost.com January 29, 2008 http://www.kypost.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=6074f9dd-16c7-4e05-a327-104702257afc About 240 people have now been paid more than $79 million in a class-action settlement between victims of sexual abuse at the hands of church officials and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington in Northern Kentucky. Two special masters in the case reviewed claims from 400 people. A statement Monday from plaintiffs' attorneys says the special masters approved 243 and rejected 157 claims, with 100 of those rejections being appealed to a judge. The settlement is between the diocese and more than 350 people abused by priests and diocese employees since the 1950s in 57 counties across a large swath of Kentucky. It called for victims to receive between $5,000 and $1 million, based on the severity and duration of the abuse they suffered. Claims in the case covered a time period from the 1950s through the 1990s. A spokeswoman for a victims' survivors group expressed satisfaction at the payments, but said they are only a partial step. "This is no way absolves Kentucky Catholic leaders of their responsibility to further warn families about these dozens of child molesting clergy," said Barbara Dorris, a St. Louis resident who is outreach director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (or SNAP), in a statement Monday. "Bishops in and around Covington should permanently post the names of the offenders on church web sites so that parents, neighbors and employers will know who the predators are." "We hope and believe this move will help these brave but wounded men and women move forward in the healing," Dorris said. "Nothing, of course, can fully restore their shattered trust and stolen childhoods. But at least this settlement provides some measure of validation to those who were first betrayed by sick priests and later betrayed by corrupt bishops." The Covington diocese agreed in 2005 to fund up to $40 million of the payout with its own funds and seek the rest from its insurers. Much of the money for the diocesean share was raised through the sale of its Marydale retreat center off Donaldson Road in Erlanger.
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