BishopAccountability.org
	Archdiocese to Pay $3.9 Million to Abuse Victims By Kristen Mack Chicago Breaking News July 21, 2009 http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/07/archdiocese-to-pay-millions-for-sex-abuse.html [Bishop Goedert's deposition] The Chicago Archdiocese today agreed to pay $3.9 million to six survivors of sexual abuse and released a bishop's deposition that detailed the church's failure to report the crimes and attempts to keep them secret. The 180-page deposition provides a rare glimpse of "how clerical culture operated in the past," Jeff Anderson, an attorney for the victims, said. Retired Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Goedert, the second highest ranking bishop in the Chicago archdiocese, testified that most of the priests he confronted with sexual abuse charges admitted it. "I knew the civil law considered it a crime," Goedert said in his deposition, adding that he felt church law and archdiocese officials required him to treat matters confidentially. "I simply would not talk about [the cases] to anyone except those who had a right to know because of their position in the diocese," he said. Goedert's deposition is a vivid demonstration of the "energy spent on keeping the scandal contained," attorney Marc Pearlman, said. "What emerges here is that the interests of the institution come first, then the man, the perpetrator of crime," Pearlman said. "And somewhere in the distance [are] the victims of the crime. Their priorities are in the wrong order.
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