UNITED KINGDOM, March 25, 2011: An order of U.S. Catholic priests has agreed to pay $166.1 million to hundreds of Native Americans sexually abused by priests at its schools. The pay-out is one of the largest to date in a series of sex abuse scandals involving the Catholic Church.
The former students at Jesuit schools in five states of the north-western U.S. said they were abused from the 1940s through the 1990s.
Under a settlement, the Society of Jesus, Oregon Province, will also apologize to the victims.
The province ran schools in the states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. Most of the alleged victims were Native American. Much of the alleged abuse occurred on Native reservations and in remote villages, where the order was accused of dumping problem priests.
“No amount of money can bring back a lost childhood, a destroyed culture or a shattered faith,” lawyer Blaine Tamaki, who represented about 90 victims in the case, said in a statement.