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	Delaware Diocese Settles Sex Abuse Lawsuit Associated Press, carried in WRAL May 15, 2008 http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/2891851/ DOVER, Del. — A Catholic Diocese in Deleware announced Thursday that it settled a lawsuit filed by man who said he was molested as a child by a priest who once lead a North Carolina church. Terms of the settlement with Eric Eden were not disclosed. Eden alleged he was repeatedly abused by the Rev. James O'Neill. "The Most Rev. Michael A. Saltarelli, bishop of the Diocese of Wilmington apologizes to Eric Eden and acknowledges that Mr. Eden was sexually abused as a child by Oblate Fr. O'Neill," the diocese said in prepared statement. "Bishop Saltarelli also apologizes to Mr. Eden's parents and expresses deepest regret for the abuse." The settlement brings an end to a lawsuit Eden filed in 2004. The other defendants in the case - O'Neill, the Oblates of Saint Francis DeSales, Salesianum School in Wilmington, and various Oblate officials - settled two months ago. O'Neill, 68, a former principal at Salesianum, was relieved of his duties as pastor of a church in Greensboro, N.C. in 2003 after officials learned of allegations of inappropriate behavior. He has been removed from the ministry and lives at an Oblate retirement community in Childs, Md. "He's permanently benched, he has no priestly faculties," said Eden's attorney, Thomas Neuberger. Eden, 40, claimed O'Neill molested him hundreds of times over a nine-year period beginning in 1976, when he was 8 years old. Edem said the abuse occured at his family's home, in O'Neill's rectory bedroom, school office and elsewhere. Eden also claimed that his parents were promised that if they did not sue church officials or report O'Neill to law enforcement authorities, O'Neill would be removed from his post at Salesianum, receive psychotherapy and not be put in a position in which he would be around other children. According to the lawsuit, Eden suppressed memories of his repeated molestation prior to 1985 until 2002, when the church sex abuse scandal made headlines. Eden won a key victory in 2006, when a judge declared that traumatic amnesia, also known as repressed memory, was a valid reason to override the statute of limitations, which otherwise would have barred his and similar lawsuits by victims of pedophile priests. Eden's lawsuit predated a law passed last year that abolished Delaware's two-year statute of limitations on personal injury lawsuits for victims of child sex abuse and allowed a two-year "lookback" period during which lawsuits previously barred by the statute of limitations can be brought anew. Under the law, an institution that employed a pedophile can be sued if it was grossly negligent in allowing the sexual abuse of a child. Neuberger said another key development in the case came late last year, when Superior Court Judge Calvin Scott Jr. ordered O'Neill to appear at a deposition and answer questions about alleged incidents of abuse in Delaware and New Jersey. In court papers filed in January, an attorney for Oblate officials and Salesianum stated that O'Neill had admitted molesting Eden. "I never would have had the opportunity to seek fairness and justice in court unless the system works, and it does work," Eden said in a statement released by Neuberger. "This is something for which I will be forever grateful." Neuberger praised Saltarelli for his willingness to reach out to victims of child sexual abuse and admit wrongdoing by priests. "He has avoided even taking the deposition of any victim, knowing full well that any such deposition will only tear open the deep emotional wounds these persons carry," said Neuberger, who has represented several plaintiffs in church sex abuse lawsuits. "... Instead, he settled their court cases and gave them full compensation. Neuberger said his firm is negotiating with Saltarelli for victims in more than 17 other cases.
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