WILMINGTON (DE)
The News Journal
Written by
BETH MILLER and SEAN O’SULLIVAN
The News Journal
WILMINGTON — The personnel records of more than a dozen priests and thousands of pages of court documents from sexual abuse lawsuits filed against the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington were released today by a Delaware-based advocacy group and a Boston-based watchdog group, and members of those groups now are calling for the resignations of three top diocesan officials.
The files emerge from agreements reached last year to settle the diocese’s bankruptcy case, which included more than $77 million in payment to abuse survivors and their attorneys. The non-monetary terms of that settlement included release of these records, many of which will be published today on the website of the nonprofit BishopAccountability.org.
Matthias Conaty, founder of Child Victims Voice, an advocacy group that fought for the 2007 Delaware law that made it possible for survivors to file the lawsuits, said the files provide clear evidence that church officials knew about abuser priests and “callously” did nothing to protect the children in their parishes.
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