The stories told by adult survivors of childhood sex abuse help educate listeners to the true nature of abuse. Victims explain how predators are often charismatic and subtle in their manipulations. Victims understand how pedophiles groom children and often zoom in on the boys and girls who lack involved and caring adults in their lives.

When the priest sex-abuse scandals in the Spokane Catholic Diocese erupted several years ago, some of the victims began to tell their stories to the media. They grew up in a church that protected its leaders and their secrets, a church that hushed children when they tried to explain the horror happening to them.

The victims also grew up in a culture that denied, and often still denies, the incidence of sex abuse in families and communities. The damage followed the young victims into adulthood, where some developed problems that society ended up paying for – addiction, domestic violence and mental illness.

As announced this week, a $48 million settlement will end the Catholic Diocese of Spokane’s bankruptcy, if approved by a bankruptcy judge. The settlement calls for the diocese’s parishes to contribute $10 million, and it calls for important non-monetary obligations, too.

For instance, victims will be allowed to speak publicly in the parishes where they were abused, and this will further educate Catholics who have so far been unable – or unwilling – to hear these stories.

But the sex-abuse scandal, and the two years of the diocese’s bankruptcy, has affected non-Catholics here, too. The Catholic influence has long been part of Spokane’s culture and history. Well-established institutions, such as Gonzaga University and Sacred Heart Medical Center, were founded by pioneering priests and nuns.

During the Catholic boom time of the ‘50s and ‘60s, Catholic children “networked” in Spokane’s once-large parochial schools and this gave them the resources and connections to become community leaders and successful business owners.

Abuse victims and their families, as well as parishioners – whose churches, schools and pocketbooks will feel the impact of the $48 million – are neighbors to us all.

The bankruptcy threw the entire community into the national spotlight in a negative way. It coaxed to the surface some of Spokane’s darkest secrets and exposed other institutions, such as the Boy Scouts, because some of the abusing priests served as Scout leaders. The scandal awakened many to the fact that predators reside not just in church communities, but in schools, neighborhoods and families.

The abuse victims’ stories illustrate what happens to children when adults don’t listen and believe. The diocese’s expensive bankruptcy illustrates what happens to institutions that fail their most vulnerable members.

The hope attached to the settlement is that the lessons, and the healing, will truly begin now and lead to a future of increased justice and safety for our children.