YAKIMA (WA)
Yakima Herald-Republic
By Pat Muir
Yakima Herald-Republic
The Catholic Diocese of Yakima agreed last month to pay $205,000 to a woman who sued over sexual abuse she said took place at the hands of a Jesuit priest in the 1970s.
The woman, identified as M.P. in the suit filed in April 2010 in Yakima County Superior Court, settled last year with the Jesuits for $288,000. Both suits stem from abuse she said occurred in 1977 when she was 8 years old at St. Joseph’s Parish, which was run by the Jesuits until last summer. The priest in question, Francis Duffy, had been accused of molesting girls in Oregon before he was transferred to Yakima, where he served until 1989. He died in 1992.
The woman’s lawyer, Bryan Smith of Tamaki Law Offices in Yakima, hailed the settlement as an overdue acknowledgment of responsibility. Previously, he said, the diocese had placed all of the blame for Duffy’s abuse on the Jesuits.
“The Yakima Diocese had not acknowledged any type of responsibility for Father Duffy despite the fact he preached in this town under their supervision for 20 years,” Smith said.
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.