NEW YORK, Oct 25 — The Archdiocese of New York said Saturday it had agreed to a settlement in which the church would pay more than US$800 million (RM3.3 billion) to hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by clergy.
The agreement, to be formally signed in early November, marks the end of years of negotiations with lawyers representing the plaintiffs, as the American Catholic Church has been mired in sexual abuse scandals since the early 2000s.
“We are on the verge of being able to, please God, bring some measure of healing and reconciliation to all victim-survivors,” New York Archbishop Ronald Hicks wrote in an email sent to his priests and forwarded to AFP by the archdiocese.
According to The New York Times, which broke the story, each of the approximately 1,300 victims will receive at least US$250,000, and potentially more depending on the severity of the abuse suffered.
