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	Top 10's No. 6: the Sexual Abuse of Children by the Catholic Church By Matthew Kauffman The Hartford Courant December 26, 2009 http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-topten-priests-1226.artdec26,0,12924.story [with video] Through Dec. 31, we are counting down the 10 most significant Connecticut news stories of the decade. We'd like to know your choices for the top 10. To read previous stories in the countdown and to vote, go to www.courant.com/ top10. We'll print readers' selections on New Year's Day. For decades, it was the Catholic Church's darkest secret. But over the past decade, details of those secrets spilled out, as church leaders in Connecticut and beyond were forced to acknowledge the devastating legacy of pedophile priests. In 2002, The Courant obtained thousands of pages of sealed documents amassed during lawsuits against priests in the Bridgeport archdiocese. The documents, dating to the 1960s, revealed how church leaders had shuttled accused priests from parish to parish, with little apparent concern for the victims of clergy sex abuse. The records showed that Bishop Edward Egan — now cardinal in New York — kept allegations of rape and abuse secret from police and parishioners alike. But as those allegations emerged, accused priests were forced out or resigned or, in at least one case, committed suicide. Connecticut churches paid tens of millions of dollars to settle abuse lawsuits, and battled on a second front to rebuild their clouded reputations. Church officials also fought the release of damaging court documents, and decried what they considered a media frenzy, pointing out that the allegations were old and did not reflect the church's current thinking or actions. Today, they note that the Catholic Church in Connecticut has provided child abuse prevention and awareness training to nearly 200,000 children and adults, and say that all credibly accused priests have been removed from priestly duties. But as the year ended, there were new revelations that the Bridgeport diocese had paid a total of $40,000 in 2004 to two men who lodged abuse complaints against two current monsignors. The diocese did not dispute the payments, but said that the accusations were not credible, and that an investigation determined that no action against the clergymen was warranted
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