http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/rural/story/9465364p-9376717c.html

Jesuits will pay abuse settlement, lawyer says
PRIESTS: Alaska Native abuse settlement said to be $50 million.

By BETH BRAGG
bbragg@...

(Published: November 19, 2007)

A settlement of $50 million will be paid to 110 Alaska Natives who say they
were sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests who preyed on children in
rural Alaska, lawyers representing the plaintiffs said Sunday.

Anchorage attorney Ken Roosa said the settlement is the largest against a
single religious order since stories of clerical abuse began to emerge
around the country several years ago.

The provincial of the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus -- also known
as the Jesuits -- called the announcement of an agreement in the civil case
premature.

"It is my understanding that there are still many issues that need to be
finalized before it is appropriate to make an official announcement," the
Very Rev. John D. Whitney, provincial for the order, said in a written
statement.

In response, Roosa produced an e-mail he received Friday in which a lawyer
for the Jesuits confirmed that a $50 million agreement had been reached.

Then he blasted Sunday's written statement from Whitney, who didn't say
what issues remained to be settled and didn't straightforwardly deny an
announcement had been reached.

"They're not honest about child rape," Roosa said, "so how can you expect
them to be honest about contractual dealings?"

The deal was agreed upon orally by both sides almost three weeks ago, he
said. On Friday, attorney Dick Hansen wrote to Roosa on behalf of the
Jesuits, saying "this email will confirm that a settlement has been reached
... (that) calls for $50,000,000 to be paid to the plaintiffs."

At one point in the e-mail, Hansen wrote, "I am glad we can put this matter
to rest."

Roosa said the agreement includes no admission of guilt and no apology from
the Jesuits, whose priests and volunteers were accused of offenses ranging
from years of rape to attempted touching.

Claims dating from the early 1960s to the late 1980s were made against 13
priests and two clerics.

Most of the claims came from Native men who were children in Western Alaska
and Yukon River villages during the 1960s and 1970s, a time when a Catholic
priest ranked among the most important figures in town.

"He was the most powerful person in the village, no doubt," Roosa said. "In
many cases they were the most educated person in the village. They were
often the only one who could understand English. They served as translator,
as go-between with the government, they married, they buried, they
baptized, they forgave sins, they condemned to hell, they resolved
disputes."

In short, he said, priests were the voice of white authority. Villagers who
say they were abused "didn't have any voice," he said.

"These are people who spent their life believing they were at fault because
they caused a holy man to do something wrong," Roosa said.

Among the accused is James Poole, a priest who founded KNOM radio station
in Nome and is accused of abusing young girls in Nome, Barrow and smaller
villages. He has been accused of raping girls as young as 6 and
impregnating at least one teenager.

Joseph Lundowski, a Trappist monk and Catholic volunteer, was accused of
sexually abusing 39 boys and young men from 1960 to 1975. Twenty-eight of
them were from St. Michael or Stebbins.

Though bigger settlements have been reached between dioceses and plaintiffs
-- the Archdiocese of Los Angeles this summer agreed to pay $660 million to
508 plaintiffs who claimed abuse by clergy -- Roosa said this is the
biggest settlement against a single religious order. The Oregon Province
runs Jesuit ministries in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

In April 2005, an Anchorage woman who accused Poole of abusing her as a
child was awarded $500,000. At the time, Whitney called the payout one of
the order's largest ever, surpassed only by one of $700,000.

The woman, who grew up in Nome and said she was abused over a nine-year
span, received another $500,000 from the Diocese of Fairbanks. Roosa said
that diocese -- which owned and managed the village churches where the
Jesuits were assigned -- faces 135 claims, many by the same plaintiffs who
sued the Jesuits.

Ten of those 135 claims will go to trial as test cases if no settlement can
be reached, he said.

As for the settlement with the Jesuits, it resolves the claims by 110
Alaskans, but it doesn't protect the order if new accusers come forward.

"This doesn't give the Jesuits a pass on additional claims," Roosa said.



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