The St. Louis Archdiocese has paid $467,500 in the past year tonine people who claimed they were sexually abused by six St.Louis-area priests as long ago as the mid-1960s, officialssaid.
A lawyer for the archdiocese said it has paid $8.2 million tosettle 103 sexual abuse claims. About three-quarters of the cashhas been paid to accusers who came forward in the past seven years,a period in which abuse by priests - and the Catholic Church'shandling of accusations - rose to a local and national scandal.
The archdiocese confirmed the settlement figures on Monday aftera survivors group held a news conference to name five of thepriests in the settlements: Robert F. Johnston, James A. Funke,Joseph Lessard, Donald Straub and Michael S. McGrath.
The archdiocese later acknowledged a mediated settlementconcerning a sixth priest last year, but did not identify him.There are about 10 complaints still pending resolution, saidBernard Huger, a lawyer for the archdiocese.
The archdiocese also agreed to post the Missouri child-abuse hotline in every archdiocesan workplace; educate adult employees onhow to recognize sexual abuse; conduct "safe touch" programs forchildren and immediately report abuse complaints toauthorities.
Huger said the first three "concessions" have been in effect foryears, and the fourth is mandated by law. Ken Chackes, a lawyer forsome of the plaintiffs, said it was important to get thearchdiocese to commit to keeping them going.
Seven members of the Survivors Network of those Abused byPriests demonstrated outside the Richmond Heights home of McGrath,decrying that none of the five priests are listed in Missouri'ssex-offender database. They distributed pamphlets to neighbors thatbegan, "Your neighbor is a predator!"
McGrath's mother, Stella, answered the door for a reporter andsaid her son was not home.
She said his accusers were making upstories "trying to get money from the archdiocese."
About the leafleting outside, she said, "I don't think there isanything I can do about it."
McGrath did not respond to a phone message.
McGrath has been sued by 20 people alleging abuse. He wasordained in 1975, removed from public ministry in 1997 and laicizedin 2005. He served in parishes and schools in St. Louis, St. LouisCounty and St. Charles County.
Funke, a former teacher at Bishop DuBourg High School in St.Louis, pleaded guilty in 1987 to molesting two teenage students andwas sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was removed from thepriesthood in 2006.
Straub was ordained in 1975 but removed from ministry by St.Louis Archbishop Cardinal John Carberry. He was laicized in 2005.
Church officials have apologized to victims and said Straubadmitted allegations of sexual abuse and had been treated beforebeing returned to service.
Johnston, defrocked in 2002, was charged with sodomy inJefferson County in 2006 for sexually abusing a boy in 1978; thedisposition of the criminal case was not clear on Monday.
Lessard admitted to the Post-Dispatch in 2002 that he molestedat least 12 boys in three parishes in the 1960s and '70s, but hadbeen returned to service by Carberry after treatment.
In astatement, then-Archbishop Justin Rigali said reassigning Lessardto new parishes was "inadequate and, by current standards,unacceptable."
He was never charged with a crime.
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