Clergy sex abuse settlements top $2.5 billion nationwide

Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY | USATODAY

Add another $10 million to the $2.5 billion that the Catholic Church in the USA has spent in confronting the clergy sex abuse crisis.

The settlement announced in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Tuesday notched up their tally to nearly $700 million in settlements to victims alone, not even adding in the costs of therapy, attorneys' fees and more. Four men abused a quarter century ago by a now-defrocked priest will divide $10 million, the archdiocese said.

In 2007, the archdiocese, the nation's largest, announced more than $660 million in settlements to 508 victims.That far surpassed the $84 million settlement record then held by Boston, epicenter of the scandal that exploded in the U.S. church in 2002.

Since then, the abuse scandal has driven up some horrifying statistics. According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection and independent studies commissioned by the bishops, the latest tallies as of 2012 were:

• More than 6,905 accused priests since 1950.

• More than 16,463 victims identified to date, although there is no national database.

• $2.5 billion in settlements and therapy bills for victims, attorneys fees and costs to care for priests pulled out of ministry from 2004 to 2011.

The new Los Angeles settlement will be split among four men who were abused two decades ago by now-defrocked priest Michael Baker. He was convicted in 2007 of child molestation and paroled in 2011.

It is the first settlement since the Catholic Church released nearly 50,000 pages of internal records detailing the actions of abusive priests and how church officials responded. But many more such announcements may be coming. After years of trying to hold their priest personnel records secret, a California judge last month forced the archdiocese to release the records without redacting the names of all the priests and church officials.

The immediate headline to emerge from the documents was the clear involvement of L.A.'s controversial former archbishop, Cardinal Roger Mahony, in trying to keep known priest predators from civil prosecution while failing to protect hundreds of victims.

Current Archbishop Jose Gomez rebuked Mahony and stripped him of some ceremonial public duties, although he remains a priest who can say Mass. More critically, Mahony remained a cardinal eligible to vote for the next pope in the conclave that began Tuesday in Rome.

Victims and liberal Catholic laity groups called on Mahony not to attend the conclave but the cardinal defended himself on his personal blog and went to Rome anyway.

The Los Angeles archdiocese announced the settlement a few hours after Mahony was locked away in the Sistine Chapel for the voting. But an archdiocesan attorney, J. Michael Hennigan, told the Associated Press that Mahony was aware of the settlement.