US: A Roman Catholic diocese in the United States has agreed a ground-breaking settlement with victims of clerical sex abuse which allows survivors to address the parishes where they were molested and obliges the church to actively encourage more victims to come forward.
The diocese of Spokane, Washington, will pay 75 people abused by priests almost $46 million, one of the largest payments to each victim since a wave of US clerical sex abuse scandals, which started in Boston in 2002.
What makes the settlement unusual, however, is the non-financial concessions agreed by Spokane's Bishop William Skylstad, which victims' groups have hailed as an important departure.
The diocese has agreed to stop referring to victims of abuse as "alleged victims" and plaintiffs will be allowed to return to the parishes where they were abused to address congregations and possibly confront their abusers.
The diocesan newspaper will devote a full page each month to victims' accounts of their abuse for the next three years.
The bishop has agreed to lobby state lawmakers to lift the statute of limitations on child sex crimes and will visit every parish where a plaintiff was abused, tell parishioners that an abuser served as a priest there and encourage them to report any suspicion of abuse.
The bishop has also agreed to write to each individual who was abused by a priest and to add two abuse victims to the diocesan board which reviews clerical sex abuse complaints.
David Clohessy, national director of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, told The Irish Times that the Spokane settlement was part of a trend.
"As victims realise that the bishops' self-professed reforms are mostly hollow, more and more victims are pushing for non-economic reforms as part of the settlement process," Mr Clohessy said. "This proposal is somewhat encouraging because it includes a good and novel set of reforms that are largely focused on public awareness and education . . . Perhaps the best way to prevent future abuse is by keeping the public spotlight on this crisis."
Dr Skylstad this week apologised to victims of sex abuse in his diocese for the "terrible wrongs" inflicted on them by priests.
The Spokane diocese is one of three in the US that have filed for bankruptcy on account of sex abuse claims. A bankruptcy judge ruled last year that all parish churches and schools could be liquidated to pay victims of sex abuse, rejecting church arguments that the diocese did not technically own the properties.
This week's agreement could enable Spokane to emerge from bankruptcy but if the victims do not accept the deal within 120 days, the sex abuse action against the diocese could go to trial. A committee has recommended that all 75 plaintiffs accept it.
Sexual abuse claims have cost the US Catholic Church more than $1 billion since 1950, most of it during the past five years.
Mr Clohessy said that despite recent settlements, the crisis in the Catholic church over child sex abuse was far from over. "I think we're much closer to the beginning than the end," he said.