VERMONT
Rutland Herald
By Kevin O’Connor
STAFF WRITER | January 08,2013
Three years after paying more than $20 million to settle almost 30 priest misconduct lawsuits, Vermont’s Catholic Church faces a new challenge: Will the first of a dozen new cases go to trial this week or can it forge an agreement to end them all?
The state’s largest religious denomination had hoped to rid itself of nearly a decade of lurid headlines and legal headaches in 2010 when it sold its historic 32-acre Burlington headquarters and 26-acre Colchester Camp Holy Cross to make good with all its then-known accusers. But that settlement didn’t preclude other former altar boys and young male churchgoers alleging sexual abuse from filing later lawsuits.
Lawyers for the first of 12 new plaintiffs are scheduled to argue their case in U.S. District Court in Burlington starting Wednesday. At a pretrial hearing Monday, Judge William Sessions III asked attorneys for both sides about the possibility of a settlement.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.