Chicago archdiocese pays $12 mil to settle clergy abuse suits

The Archdiocese of Chicago said Tuesday it agreed to pay more than $12.6 million to settle lawsuits by 16 people who said they were sexually abuse by priests, and for the first time released a lengthy deposition by Cardinal Francis George.

"My hope is that these settlements will help the survivors and their families begin to heal and move forward," George said in a statement. "I apologize again today to the survivors and their families and to the whole Catholic community."

Fourteen cases settled Tuesday involve sexual abuse by 10 different priests. Two involve an 11th priest, the Rev. Daniel J. McCormack, who pleaded guilty last year to abusing five children and is serving a five-year prison sentence.

One of the plaintiffs, Therese Albrecht, 48, said she was raped and sodomized from age 8 to 11 by the Rev. Joseph R. Bennett, a priest at St. John De La Salle on Chicago's South Side. She said she did not report the abuse until she was an adult, and then felt the archdiocese did not believe her.

Bennett was removed from the ministry in 2006, about two years after Albrecht came forward.

"Today is not a happy, joyous day for me," the Steger housewife said Tuesday, adding that she has been in therapy and at one point was suicidal. "I'm very grateful I survived this. I didn't think I would."

In a 307-page deposition, George answered searching questions from an attorney for victims concerning why priests were not removed despite growing accusations of sexual abuse.

Two months after McCormack was arrested and then released by police in August 2005, a review board of the archdiocese recommended removing him from the ministry, but George took no action.

"They gave me that advice, yes," George said. "I wish that I had followed it with all my heart."

At the time, though, he said he "thought that they had not finished the investigation -- they hadn't considered all the evidence."

Attorneys said it was the first time such a candid question-and-answer session under oath by one of the Catholic Church's top leaders had been unsealed and made public. George previously acknowledged he failed to act soon enough in McCormack's case.

The mediation also calls for other information and files to be made public, the archdiocese said.

Attorney Jeff Anderson, who represented some of the victims in Tuesday's settlement, praised the mediation process and said in a statement that the cardinal was "actively involved in this process."

"He has demonstrated his commitment to healing these survivors," Anderson said.

Barbara Blaine, president and founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, issued a statement criticizing the church but praising the victims for insisting "that secret church documents about these pedophile priests will be made public."

"These courageous victims are the ones who deserve praise today," she said.

"No single check magically erases years of cover up and insensitivity and recklessness and deceit of public relations posturing by church officials," Blaine said. "Nor does a check magically restore the shattered trust, stolen childhoods and devastated psyches of dozens of victims of predatory priests and complicit bishops."

The settlement brings to $65 million the total paid by the archdiocese over three decades to settle about 250 claims, Chancellor Jimmy Lago said. Mediation continues in about a couple dozen more cases, he said.

George said Tuesday that the entire Catholic church has been "certainly wounded" by sex abuse scandals.

"How greatly, I don't know," he said.

The abusers

Here's the list of the 11 priests involved and their status, which was provided by the archdiocese:

• Robert C. Becker, died in 1989.

• Joseph R. Bennett, removed from the ministry in 2006.

• Robert Craig, resigned in 1993.

• James C. Hagan, resigned in 1997.

• Thomas F. Kelly, died in 1990.

• Norbert Maday, removed from the ministry in 1993 and now in prison.

• Robert E. Mayer, resigned in 1994.

• Daniel J. McCormack, removed from the ministry in 2006 and now in prison.

• Joseph Owens, resigned in 1970.

• Kenneth C. Ruge, died in 2002.

• James Steel, resigned in 1992.

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=227113">Statement from Archdiocese <span class="date">[08/12/08]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>