Is this a tool the ACLU/personal injury lawyers are going to use against other churches to close them?
Yes. It's setting a very dangerous and frightening precedent ... anti-religious people can essentially circumvent the First Amendment through the civil court system.
I'm struck that they are settling claims from 30+ years ago. What evidence is there? Sexual abuse is a problem to be dealt with, but it seems that a bad precedent is being set that the accused should automatically settle.
Yup, but it's forced by economics. Spokane is facing something like 130 cases. They look at that, see that they can settle all of them for roughly $500,000 each, and determine that they can't possibly bring them to trial for less than that. (Even before considering that they won't win all 130, or maybe even any of them.)
My own diocese just settled for something like $600,000 a case over abuse that took place after the abuser had been forced to leave the priesthood! (The claim was that the church hadn't done enough to tell the city about it, or something like that. As if they had the resources to know where this joker was and what he was doing at all times.)
Now another case from the same abuser has been brought, this time from when he was an active priest. The plaintiffs are asking $10 million. The parish where the abuse evidently took place isn't even in my diocese anymore, though it was 25-30 years ago when the abuse happened. (Lawyers: how does that work?)
Pastors, elders, mullahs, whatever of every religious persuasion need to be very careful. The lawyers can wipe your church out, for offenses committed by people who are long gone.
This is bad economics. The personal injury lawyers bank on this thinking. If from the beginning you fight the questionable cases you don't encourage future "questionable" claims.Lawyers love settlements because they breed more cases.
The flip side is you have to throw the doors open and clean out the garbage and change the liberal mindset in the seminaries.