Jesuits agree to settle Alaska abuse claims
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A Roman Catholic religious order has agreed to pay $50 million to dozens of Alaska Natives who were victims of sexual abuse by Jesuit priests, their lawyer said Sunday.
The settlement with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus is the largest one yet against a Catholic religious order, said Anchorage lawyer Ken Roosa.
However, the superior of the Oregon Province called the announcement premature. The Oregon-based province covers Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.
Roosa called the settlement “a great day” for the victims in which the truth of what had occurred over many years was recognized.
“These are people who were altar boys and altar servers and altar girls. These are people who tried to tell their story and in many instances were beaten or told to shut up and told, ‘How can you say such things about a man of God?’ “
The settlement announcement is premature because some issues need to be finalized, said the Very Rev. John Whitney, provincial superior of the Oregon Province.
“When those issues are resolved we will be available for a more complete discussion of the matter,” Whitney said in a statement. He described the settlement announcement as “premature and detrimental.”
Roosa said the only issues that remained were with the religious order’s insurer.
He provided an e-mail sent Friday from Dick Hansen, the lawyer representing the religious order: “This email will confirm that a settlement has been reached. … The settlement calls for $50,000,000 to be paid to the plaintiffs/claimants in exchange for releases of all claims against the Jesuit defendants. …”
In the e-mail, Hansen says he’s glad to “put this matter to rest.”
The sexual abuse involved 13 or 14 clerics and spanned nearly 30 years, from 1961 to 1987, Roosa said. The victims ranged from 5-year-olds to teenagers.
In some villages it is difficult to find an adult who was not sexually violated by the priests, who then used religion and power to silence hundreds of children, Roosa said.
“Despite all this, no Catholic religious leader has yet to admit that problem priests were dumped in Alaska. For our clients, this settlement represents a long overdue acknowledgment of the truth of their stories of abuse, stories that until today were largely denied and belittled by apologists for the abusers,” he said.
Dick Hansen, the lawyer representing the religious order, did not immediately return a call for comment.
Roosa said the church was notified of the Alaska cases of abuse in 2002.
The cases include those involving the Rev. James Poole, founder of Catholic radio station KNOM in Nome. Poole, who lives in an assisted living facility in Spokane, worked in a number of towns and villages in rural Alaska.
Roosa said the cases also involve Joseph Lundowski, who died in 1993. Lundowski was a Trappist monk who volunteered for the bishop of Fairbanks, Roosa said.
“He was a very prolific molester and molested about 60 kids,” he said.
The cases do not include those against the Diocese of Fairbanks, which owned and managed the churches in the villages where the Jesuit priests were assigned. Those 135 lawsuits have been reduced to 10. Those cases are expected to be mediated in December.
In February, an Oregon woman filed a $5 million lawsuit against the Oregon Province claiming she was molested by two priests as a young girl.
The unidentified plaintiff accused the Rev. Poole and the late Rev. John Duffy of molesting her when she was 7 or 8 and a student at St. Mary of the Valley School in Beaverton. Duffy died in 1992.
The lawsuit alleges the Jesuits became aware in about 1960 of Poole “behaving in a sexually inappropriate manner” with minor girls at a boarding school in Alaska and transferred him to Portland in 1964 with no apparent restrictions on contact with minors or females and without telling parents or parishioners of his past.
It said Poole was transferred to Portland despite the religious order having “clear knowledge” that he had a “deviant sexual interest in young girls.”