Chicago's Catholic archdiocese will allow dozens of former priests
accused of child sexual abuse to be identified as part of a settlement
that moves the church closer to naming all offending clergy, a lawyer
for abuse victims said on Monday.
The undisclosed financial settlement with the nation's third-largest
diocese on behalf of 12 abuse victims promises to identify as many as 35
former diocesan priests as offenders, a significant advance in the
protection of children, attorney Jeff Anderson said.
"This establishes a strict protocol for the review of every file" the
diocese has on abusive priests, said Anderson, who has worked on more
than a hundred abuse cases involving the Chicago archdiocese and
collected some $50 million in settlements.
"This protocol, if implemented, is on the front end of the child protection movement," Anderson said.
Boston's archdiocese, where the priest abuse scandal broke a decade
ago, set a new standard for transparency last week when it published the
names of 159 accused clergy.
The Chicago archdiocese already lists 65 former clergy credibly
accused of sexual abuse.
Anderson said he has brought cases involving
roughly half of them.
Among those identified as part of the settlement was former priest
Joseph Fitzharris, who was defrocked in 1991 but still lives in Chicago.
Like many accused clergy, he has not been criminally charged in part
because the abuses occurred long ago and the statute of limitations has
expired, Anderson said.
Angel Santiago, a father of two who still wears a cross around his
neck, told reporters he was abused by Fitzharris when he was 12 and 13
but suffered in silence until after his father and sister died.
Santiago's father loved his job as custodian at Fitzharris' church
though the priest fired him in a move Santiago said he believes was
punishment for his own absence from the church to avoid the priest.
"I'm here to protect kids," Santiago said of the importance to him of naming offending priests. "I'm not afraid anymore."
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