Jesuits Pay $1.5 Million In Indian Abuse Case

A Roman Catholic religious order has paid $1.5 million to 59 Chippewa Indians who say they were sexually abused as boys by the pastor of a church on the Nawash reservation in Ontario.

The Jesuit Fathers of Upper Canada order is considering claims by another 38 Indians who say they were abused by the Rev. George Epoch, according to the Rev. Winston Rye, who helped negotiate the payments.

Epoch made the St. Mary’s Church in Cape Croker, about 125 miles northwest of Toronto, a haven for Indian boys who escaped abusive parents.

After he left in 1983, some of those boys said he had sexually abused them. Epoch died in 1986.