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- THE WEEK, Page 22SOCIETYSettling a Scandal
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- As Catholic bishops promise action on child abuse, 68 cases
- are closed
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- According to Jason Berry's astonishing, disheartening new
- account, Lead Us Not into Temptation (Doubleday), 400 U.S. and
- Canadian Catholic clerics have been accused of child
- molestation, costing the church roughly $400 million in damage
- payments and other expenses. Now one of the biggest cases is
- over. The Fall River, Massachusetts, diocese reached an
- out-of-court settlement with 68 persons who said they were
- abused in the 1960s by Father James Porter and accused the
- diocese of ignoring his misdeeds. The accusers, who agreed not
- to disclose the financial terms, were sober in victory. Cash
- "is not a medicine. It won't make any one of us healthy," said
- Peter Calderone. Porter, now married, out of the priesthood and
- living in Minnesota, faces sex charges there and in
- Massachusetts. Last month the sluggish U.S. Catholic bishops
- made their first joint response after years of scandals,
- pledging prompt action on charges, removal of miscreants and
- care for victims.
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