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	Church Sexual Abuse Settlement Gives Victims Insight into Priest Associated Press July 5, 2008 http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/jul/05/church-abuse-settlement-gives-victims-insight/ Archdiocese of Denver releases documents about pedophile priest DENVER - Tom Koldeway says he was about 9 years old when Harold Robert White, then a priest in the small mountain town of Minturn, started sexually abusing him. That was 1970, and Koldeway, now 47, kept the secret for decades. When he finally told his siblings, he learned White had also abused his older brother and sister. Koldeway was among 18 people whose lawsuits or claims of sex abuse by priests were settled this month by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver for $5.5 million. Since 2005, the archdiocese has settled 43 sex-abuse claims for a total of about $8.2 million. Some of White's personnel records, released by the archdiocese as part of the latest settlement, confirmed some victims' allegations that church officials knew of complaints against White as early as 1961, and that they moved him from parish to parish as complaints arose instead of immediately alerting authorities. White wasn't removed from ministry until 1993. In his only public comment on the allegations, he said they contained "half truths." He died in 2006. Koldeway said church leaders concealed what White had done. "They enabled him to be what he was," Koldeway said. "I get the most satisfaction out of the settlement being able to reveal the church conspiracy in this matter," Koldeway said. "I feel fulfillment through this. I feel justification. I have no regrets." Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput said he could not judge actions of the bishops who handled White's case, since they have all died. "We have so much more knowledge today of the impact of sexual abuse on others," Chaput said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We're aware that true pedophilia is a persistent state. It can't be cured. (The perpetrators) can be taught to cope with it and not to act on impulse, but it's not something that goes away. That's information they didn't have 20 or 30 years ago," he said. State legislators have tried but failed to lift the statute of limitations for people abused by priests who seek legal action years later. Church leaders said they support lifting the limits on when childhood sex abuse victims can sue, as long as legislation applies equally to all institutions, not just the church or to private institutions.
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