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	Settlement, No Answers The Berkshire Eagle July 6, 2008 http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_9799095?IADID=Search-www.berkshireeagle.com-www.berkshireeagle.com Victims of clergy abuse at the hands of the Springfield Diocese who have been waiting for the diocese to settle its dispute with its insurance companies now have an opportunity to collect compensation with the reaching of an $8.5 million agreement between the diocese and the insurers. If they are looking for answers or for closure, however, they may be disappointed. The settlement will be used in part to pay back the diocese for the money it paid to settle 47 abuse cases, with the remaining $5 million to be used to establish a settlement fund for the 61 remaining victims. An arbitration panel will determine the awards, and while none of the 61 are required to participate, going it alone against the diocese and its insurers is not an attractive prospect. The clergy abuse victims have been waiting for three years while the diocese fought the claims of the five insurers that they had no obligation to pay if diocesean officials were aware of sexual abuse by priests. While that was clearly the case in the Boston Archdiocese, where pedophiles were shipped from parish to parish for decades by an indifferent hierarchy, Springfield officials maintain they were unaware of any clergy abuse on their watch. Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell, who according to a statement could not attend last week's press conference announcing the settlement because of a "long-standing three o'clock commitment" elsewhere, was not available to answer questions about how these abuse incidents, most of which took place in the 1960s and 1970s, could have happened without authorities finding out. To know and fail to act is worse than not knowing, but not knowing is not something to be proud of, in particular if that ignorance was born of indifference. What diocese officials did and didn't know over the decades will likely never be entirely clear in the wake of this settlement. Barbara Blaine, president of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, stated last week that settlement agreements like the one reached in Springfield are often "more about protecting secrets and bishops than about helping victims and families." Ideally, many victims and families will receive peace from this settlement, but in the absence of answers there will always be questions. Last week, the Denver Archdiocese agreed to pay $5.5 million in clergy abuse suits as the Catholic Church continues to dig its way out of a numbing series of scandals. As in Springfield there were appropriate apologies, but as in Springfield there were no explanations, no accounting for these grievous failures to protect parishioners, most of whom were young when abused. Without those answers there is no finality, and if dioceses anywhere believe finality is reached when they or their insurers sign checks to victims, there is no assurance that these terrible acts will not be repeated.
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