NEW YORK
Reuters
By Jonathan Allen | NEW YORK
The Roman Catholic Church in the New York City borough of Brooklyn has set up a compensation program for victims of sexual abuse by its clergy, the Diocese of Brooklyn said on Thursday.
The program is modeled on one set up last year by the neighboring Archdiocese of New York, which encompasses the city’s boroughs of Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx. Both programs were created in part to give victims who were abused a long time ago, beyond statutes of limitations, a chance for compensation.
“I am well aware that no amount of money will ever heal the scars of abuse, but this program is a concrete expression of our contrition and our desire to make amends,” Nicholas DiMarzio, the Bishop of Brooklyn, said in a video statement. He said he had met more than 50 victims of sexual abuse by clergy.
The Roman Catholic Church, which has more than 1.2 billion adherents, has grappled in recent years with the damage done to its role as a moral authority as more than a thousand people around the world have said they were abused by clergy, typically when they were children.
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