c. 2000 Religion News Service
PORTLAND, Ore. _ Twenty-three former altar boys settled their sexual abuse lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Portland and a suspended priest on Tuesday (Oct. 10) in one of the nation’s largest molestation cases involving the Roman Catholic Church.
The case of the Rev. Maurice Grammond resulted in confidential financial settlements, an apology and the promise of church reforms. The men had asked for $44 million.
While the church’s official statement distances itself from the abuse of a generation ago, the archdiocese invited a new task force to examine its policies on sex-abuse complaints.
“This ends a half-century of fear and secrecy and silence and shame that have protected Father Grammond,” said plaintiffs’ lawyer David Slader at a press conference in the Multnomah County courthouse Tuesday.
Grammond, 80, is in a home for Alzheimer’s patients. He retired for health reasons in 1986, and was quietly stripped of all priestly duties in 1991 after a Seaside, Ore., resident said Grammond abused him as a boy. That suspension will be formalized in writing as part of the settlement.
The 25 plaintiffs _ two have not settled their lawsuits _ accused Grammond of molestation while they were boys. The alleged incidents span from 1950, when Grammond was ordained, into the 1970s, at an orphanage and parishes in Portland, and churches in Oakridge and Seaside.
“The incidents of abuse alleged in this case date from 25 to 50 years ago,” the Rev. Dennis O’Donovan, vicar general of the archdiocese, said in a statement at the press conference. “For a number of years, policies and practices have been in place in the archdiocese to guard against similar incidents.”
Archbishop John G. Vlazny, head of the archdiocese that includes more than half of the western part of the state, was absent from the joint announcement Tuesday. An apology from Vlazny will be read at every parish during Mass this Sunday.
“To any person who has suffered from abuse by any personnel of the Archdiocese of Portland, and to their families, I express my deep regret and ask for pardon and forgiveness,” the apology said.
Former Seaside altar boy Joseph Elliott, who filed the first lawsuit against Grammond in December, said the finale press conference was something of a letdown.
“I thought it was a bit empty,” he said, although he praised the breadth of the reforms reached by the two sides.
Until December, the archdiocese had seen relatively few sex abuse cases involving its priests. Every one of the country’s 188 Catholic dioceses has faced a sex-abuse lawsuit, some fighting a dozen or more simultaneously.
Attorney Jeff Anderson of Minneapolis has sued over half of those dioceses. He called the Grammond settlement historic. “It’s a giant leap farther than any place else I’ve ever been _ any archdiocese anywhere in the U.S. of A,” he said.
He called Vlazny’s apology “a real effort to reach out to each man and his family to help the healing process.”
The settlement also includes:
_ A service of healing for any victim or member of their family who wants one.
_ Reassurance from the church of the “validity and value” of any sacrament administered by Grammond, such as Holy Communion, confession, marriage and baptism.
_ Appointment of a six-member task force, to include church officials and at least two of the plaintiffs and U.S. Magistrate Thomas M. Coffin, to review the archdiocese’s polices and procedures on abuse complaints, including education, reporting, prevention and response.
KRE END WILSON
