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	Friars to Settle Abuse Claims The Associated Press, carried in Whittier Daily News [California] March 25, 2006 http://www.whittierdailynews.com/opinions/ci_3598992 LOS ANGELES - Franciscan friars have reached a preliminary settlement of more than $28 million with about two dozen people who claimed they were sexually abused at a now-defunct Santa Barbara seminary and mission, officials said Monday. Attorney Raymond Boucher, who represents eight of the plaintiffs, said the average payment would be about $1.27 million. The figure was confirmed by the friars. "Under the circumstances, I think this was a very fair settlement," Boucher said. "Some will get significantly more, some will get significantly less, depending on their facts and circumstances." Attorney Tim Hale, who represents 13 of the plaintiffs, said the tentative pact is similar to a 2004 agreement in which the Diocese of Orange settled 90 abuse claims for $100 million and released documents involving the predatory priests. "In making this settlement, we friars are trying to do the right thing and help bring about healing," the Rev. Melvin A. Jurisich, provincial minister for the Franciscan Friars, Province of Saint Barbara, said in a statement. The number of people involved in the settlement remained in flux, apparently because of unsettled legal issues. Hale said a proposed settlement involved 22 cases. The Franciscan friars said the group reached a preliminary settlement with 25 plaintiffs. Boucher said it was 23. The agreement could be completed within weeks. The plaintiffs filed lawsuits against the Franciscan religious order that ran the seminary and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which oversees religious orders and Roman Catholic churches in Santa Barbara County. A lawyer for the archdiocese, Michael Hennigan, did not immediately respond to a message left at his office. The case centers on allegations that nine priests and brothers sexually abused men and women from 1964 through 1991 while assigned to St. Anthony's Seminary and Old Mission Santa Barbara. The Franciscans conceded that abuse occurred at St. Anthony's after an internal report published in 1993 found that 11 priests had abused 34 boys from 1964 to 1987, when the seminary closed for financial reasons. Hale said he wanted the deal to require public release of priest personnel files and 17 depositions taken from current or former Franciscans.
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