MONTANA
Indian County Today Media Network
Stephanie Woodard
2/6/15
Suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse. A plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Diocese of Helena (Montana) and the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province ticked off the long-term effects of the sexual, physical and emotional abuse by nuns and priests that he and other plaintiffs suffered as children. “The memories keep coming back,” said the plaintiff, who asked to be referred to as John Doe. “It’s daily. You withdraw.” The problems have devastated individuals and entire communities, he said.
A proposed settlement in the lawsuit has just been accepted by all sides. The 362 plaintiffs are mostly Native Americans, who were abused from the 1930s through the 1970s. The defendants are the Diocese, which oversaw western Montana and will pay the plaintiffs copy5 million via bankruptcy reorganization and insurance proceeds, and the Ursulines, who ran a boarding and day school in St. Ignatius, Montana, where much of the abuse took place. The Ursulines will pay $4.45 million, largely from sale of assets, according to Tamaki Law Offices, one of the firms representing the plaintiffs.
Court documents say nuns, priests and lay employees also raped, sodomized, fondled and beat children at other western Montana schools and parishes. The Ursulines ran their school with the help of Jesuits, who are also named as abusers.
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