NEW YORK
New York Times
By SHARON OTTERMAN and SAMANTHA SCHMIDT
OCT. 6, 2016
The Archdiocese of New York has established an independent compensation commission that will allow victims of sexual abuse by clergy to apply for monetary compensation from the church, even for abuse claims that are decades old, church leaders said Thursday.
The commission will be headed by Kenneth Feinberg, who ran the federal Sept. 11 victims fund. It will have independent authority to determine eligibility for the awards and their amounts, church officials said. The archdiocese said it would borrow the money to pay for the awards, which could easily run into the millions.
Some 200 sexual abuse victims have come forward to the archdiocese over the years, in cases involving some 40 priests. To date, only about 30 of them have received compensation, church leaders said.
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the archbishop of New York, said he was inspired by Pope Francis in forming the commission and hoped it would become a model for other archdioceses. “I wish I would have done this quite a while ago,” he said in an interview. “I just finally thought, ‘Darn it, let’s do it. I’m tired of putting it off.’”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.