WCAX [Burlington VT]
April 19, 2006
http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=4791937&nav=menu183_15_13_6
A priest sex abuse trial in Burlington ended before it began today. The trial was called off after Vermont's Roman Catholic diocese agreed to settle a lawsuit with a man who claims he was abused by a priest more than 25 years ago.
This was just one of scores of sex abuse lawsuits across the country that have cost the church millions of dollars. The statewide Catholic Diocese of Burlington agreed to pay Michael Gay $965,000. The diocese also admits its responsibility for failing to take action against the perpetrator, Father Edward Paquette.
Lawyer Jerome O'Neill came armed with charts outlining the extent of the sexual abuse. Paquette was thrown out of the priesthood in 1978. But O'Neill says then-Bishop John Marshall knew about Paquette's background as a homosexual predator long before then.
"He hired him as a priest when he knew he had abused children in at least-- at least-- two places in Massachusetts, three places in Indiana," O'Neill told Channel 3.
The church decided it would be better to settle than to fight in court.
David Cleary, a lawyer for the Diocese, says Bishop Salvatore Matano authorized the settlement, in spite of its high cost. "Very expensive, much more so than we anticipated," a lawyer for the Diocese told reporters. Cleary says the settlement was the right thing to do for both sides, given the expense of even more trials yet to come. After his lawyer collects, the victim, Michael Gay, will get over half a million dollars.
"It would have been an unnecessary further depletion of the few assets that the Diocese has to try to resolve these cases," Cleary said. "The bottom line is, how much are we going to get out of this that goes not through lawyers' hands or pockets, but goes back to victims. That's an important consideration for the Diocese."
Late in the day, the Diocese announced that it would pay for the settlement by taking out loans, but not tap into the Bishops fund-- and that Church programs and charities would not be affected.
O'Neill says most of the remaining sixteen priest sex abuse cases in Vermont center on Edward Paquette-- eleven in all. He blames then-Bishop Marshall. "When you look at the documents, what you see is Bishop Marshall waited for over a month," he said. "And it was only-- only-- community pressure that Bishop Marshall was forced to remove father Paquette as a priest, or he would have kept him on."
More than 25 years later, the Diocese is paying a heavy price. Its lawyers say the settlement in Michael Gay's lawsuit may set a troublesome precedent for the rest of the cases still to come.
Cleary said, "If they were to be settled for similar amounts, it would be catastrophic."
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