Nothing about the settlement announced Monday in a lawsuit filed against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis can erase the years of pain suffered by victims of child abuse.

Nothing written on paper can undo the crimes committed by clergy members who preyed on those who trusted them as spiritual guides, only to have that trust broken by sexual predators wearing clerical collars.

The courageous victims who have pursued justice in the face of decades of stonewalling by the Roman Catholic Church deserve most of the credit for the child protection plan revealed Monday — not the lawyers or church leaders who forged the agreement. “Awareness is a painful process,” Vicar General Charles Lachowitzer said at a news conference in St. Paul. “We are humiliated.”

Humiliation is what too many victims of clergy abuse have felt — sometimes in silence and alone — for far too long. Like them, we want to believe the settlement signals a new era for the church — not only in Minnesota but in archdioceses across the country. But we remain skeptical.

The problem has been that for years — for decades — church leaders have valued avoiding institutional and individual consequences above safeguarding children. And so far, even in the face of this “humiliation,” consequences are still being avoided.

The suit against the archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona was the first filed under the Minnesota Child Victim’s Act, which allowed older abuse cases to be heard in civil court. Passed by the Legislature in 2013, the law gave victims three years to file suit for sexual abuse that had occurred in the past.

A man identified as John Doe 1 filed the suit that was settled Monday. He claimed he had been abused by former priest Tom Adamson at a St. Paul Park church in the 1970s. Adamson, who had been accused of molesting boys in the Winona diocese, allegedly abused the boy after being transferred to the Twin Cities archdiocese without public notification.

The Minnesota Religious Council (on behalf of Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran and United Methodist churches) lobbied against the Child Victim’s Act at the Legislature. And, as recently as last month, lawyers for the archdiocese argued that Ramsey County District Judge John Van de North should dismiss a public-nuisance claim made in the Adamson case.

But Van de North ruled that the claim that the church created a public nuisance by moving known child sex offenders from parish to parish could go forward, allowing the plaintiff’s attorneys access to all of the evidence pertaining to all clergy abuse across the archdiocese. The ruling also forced sworn testimony from top church officials such as Archbishop John Nienstedt, former Archbishop Harry Flynn, and former vicars general Kevin McDonough and Peter Laird.

After losing at the Legislature and in Van de North’s court, the archdiocese likely became more serious about the settlement and the child protection plan announced Monday by Doe’s attorney, Jeff Anderson.

Notably absent from the news conference was Nienstedt, who was on a mission trip in Africa. The archbishop did release a statement saying he was “deeply saddened and profoundly sorry for the pain suffered by victims, survivors and their families.”

Minnesotans, especially Catholics, want to believe that the archdiocese can return to its core mission of compassion, social justice and civic harmony — and that the church will restore its place as one of this state’s most valuable institutions.

The settlement announced Monday provides hope of recovery for the church, but — as this page first argued in July — the archdiocese needs a true reformer to lead it forward. Nienstedt lacks the credibility, both internally and externally, to overcome skepticism that little will change, and his resignation is a necessary next step for an archdiocese in need of healing.