Hundreds of sex abuse suits filed against dioceses

At least 300 civil lawsuits alleging clerical sex abuse have been filed in 16 states since January, when the case of a pedophile priest in Boston spurred claims against Roman Catholic dioceses across America, a nationwide review by The Associated Press found.

Lawyers say the rush of litigation is truly dramatic for such a short time, and that several hundred more cases are being informally mediated between dioceses and accusers.

That ensures American bishops will remain under enormous legal and financial pressure from the scandal even after they overhaul their abuse policy in a meeting starting Thursday.

"It's off the charts," said Pat Schiltz, a Minnesota attorney who has defended dioceses against hundreds of claims.

Daniel Holden, attorney for the Orange County, Calif., Diocese, said it would take a couple of years for these cases alone to be resolved, and more will certainly be filed.

New York attorney Michael Dowd said he was still preparing about 60 molestation claims against dioceses in his area.

Chicago Cardinal Francis George may sell the mansion where the city's archbishops have lived for more than a century, acknowledging some of the proceeds could be used to pay legal fees in abuse cases.

250 priests gone

Almost 250 of the nation's more than 46,000 Roman Catholic priests have either been dismissed from their duties or resigned since the scandal began in January.

Beyond the toll in loss of staff and credibility, the financial cost of these cases has never been fully calculated. Estimates of what the church has paid out since the first major scandals broke in the 1980s range from about $300 million to $1 billion.

AP reporters across the country interviewed lawyers and reviewed court documents last week to count the number of abuse lawsuits across the nation. The tally does not include a handful of cases alleging misconduct by lay church workers.

Dioceses in Kentucky face the most lawsuits -- 122 -- with more than a third involving claims against one priest, the Rev. Louis E. Miller, who denies any wrongdoing. Three other suits allege abuse by Lexington Bishop Kendrick Williams while he was a Louisville priest.

The bulk of the remaining claims were concentrated in states hardest-hit by the scandal.

At least 73 suits have been filed in Massachusetts, where some of the most notorious abuse cases -- involving former priest John Geoghan and the Rev. Paul Shanley -- have been winding through the courts. Geoghan, whose case sparked the crisis, was convicted this year of fondling one boy, though more than 130 people have accused him of molesting them.

Another 41 claims have been made in New Hampshire, where Bishop John McCormack has been under scrutiny for his former role in supervising accused priests in Boston and for his response to abuse claims when he became head of the Manchester Diocese.

At least 25 additional lawsuits have been filed in California.

In states where no new claims have been made, many old suits are pending. The Diocese of Providence, R.I., for example, is a defendant in 38 abuse lawsuits filed before January.

And some of the newer lawsuits have spilled over into other states. Wisconsin has no recent claims, but a suit filed this year in California named the Milwaukee Archdiocese as a defendant.

Intense media coverage of the scandal is partly responsible for the large number of suits, lawyers say. "The volume of calls has increased dramatically," said attorney Darrell Papillion of Baton Rouge, La. "I truly am talking to someone every day."

Lawyers on both sides acknowledged some people may be coming forward with false claims, hoping to cash in on a vulnerable church. But Schiltz, the Minnesota lawyer, said he believes the number of fake allegations likely was small.

Steve Rubino, a New Jersey attorney who has brought hundreds of abuse claims against the Catholic church, said psychologists vet clients for him, using polygraph examinations and other techniques.

Schiltz believes the scandal has brought forth what he calls "marginal claims" -- people who may not have been sexually abused, but who experienced some misconduct by priests in the past and had been willing to let it go before they learned how bishops protected abusive clergy.

"When I started doing this work, I would often point out to bishops that most victims would come forward first to the church and would only turn to the court system if the church did not act responsibly," Schiltz said. "There's a lot they can do to prevent claims from turning into lawsuits."

Rubino agreed that a bishop's reputation for dealing with victims often determines if claims are mediated or land in court.

"Each bishop has a different approach to dealing with this. Each state has a different statute of limitations," he said. "There's a variety of variables that impact how dioceses are addressing this."

No one in the church has an official tally of the number of lawsuits filed before this year. Sylvia Demarest, a Dallas attorney who has been tracking abuse claims, said at least 1,500 U.S. priests have been publicly accused since the 1980s.

Even with the scandal dragging into its sixth month, new claims are being made every day.

"You're not going to be able to stop this," Rubino said.