Free Republic

The Archdiocese of New York has agreed to pay $800 million to settle the claims brought against the church by some 1,300 people who say they faced sexual abuse from clergy members and lay workers. Jeff Anderson, a lawyer whose firm represents more than 250 of the plaintiffs, said the settlement was finalized, pending signed paperwork, and that all plaintiffs had agreed to the settlement. In an email sent to priests of the archdiocese on Saturday afternoon and shared with NPR, Archbishop Ronald Hicks also said the deal had not yet been signed but that an agreement had been reached...

Frontline’s next exposé focuses on the “decades of abuse of Native Americans by priests and other church workers in Alaska,” and in one particular town they find, “nearly 80% of the town’s children were molested” by Catholic priests. As we reported on this story just a few weeks ago, the Roman Catholic Church, as part of ongoing lawsuits, will make payments to approximately 700 male and female sexual and psychological abuse, molestation, and rape victims who were living in Alaska Native villages and Indian reservations from Montana to Washington, Idaho and Oregon, and who were “sexually or psychologically abused as...