MONTANA
Missoulian
By Kathryn Haake
COEUR d’ALENE, Idaho – Though a federal court has approved a $20 million settlement compensating hundreds of western Montana Catholics molested by nuns and priests, the trauma endured by the victims is far from over, they said Wednesday.
“This isn’t going to stop me from remembering,” one of the victims said following the bankruptcy hearing. “I walk past a church, I remember it. I walk past a priest, I remember it. I see a nun, I remember it.”
The bankruptcy settlement includes a $15 million payment from the Catholic Diocese of Helena and another $4.45 million from the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province, who ran the Ursuline Academy of St. Ignatius.
Bryan Smith, who represented more than 360 victims, said most attended school at the Ursuline Academy or the St. Ignatius Mission in St. Ignatius.
The diocese was forced to file for bankruptcy last year in order to settle a lawsuit filed by two groups of victims in 2011. U.S. District Judge Terry Myers approved the arrangement in a federal bankruptcy court in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on Wednesday morning, without objections from either side.
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