WHAT HEELS: Suffer, Little Children: St. Louis Archdiocese
The St. Louis Archdiocese has spent $352,000 during the last fiscal year on payments to sex abuse victims – but more than double that amount on lawyers to defend pedophile priests, reports The Associated Press:
Numbers released by the archdiocese ... show more was paid in legal fees than to victims for five of the past 10 fiscal years.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said Monday that fewer cases of clergy sex abuse are being filed, so legal costs should be declining. From 2002 to 2008, legal fees rose steadily to a high of $1.1 million. The archdiocese reported spending $843,000 in fiscal year 2009.
David Clohessy, SNAP's national director, said a disproportionate amount of money is being spent fighting victims rather than helping them.
"More and more, the archdiocese is playing legal hardball with victims," Clohessy said.
"It shows a continued emphasis on a legalistic and defensive posture, rather than a really compassionate and preventive one," he added. …
The report also shows no money was spent the past four years on counseling offending clergy.
Archdiocese attorney Bernard Huger tells AP that said the archdiocese prefers to settle “credible” abuse allegations through arbitration.
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