Rhode Island diocese will pay $1.3 million to abuse victims

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence will pay $1.3 million to four people who said they were abused by priests, lawyers announced Friday.

The settlements were reached in June and will go to the victims or their estates, said attorney James Murphy, who represented the church.

"There is no amount of money that is going to make it right," Carl DeLuca, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, told The Providence Journal. "It is more an issue of validation. And in that sense they feel validated."

Three men sued the diocese starting in 2003 alleging that priests abused them as children. Murphy said a fourth man contacted church authorities to report that he had been abused; he never filed a lawsuit and died before the settlement was reached.

"These are very intense cases and troubling cases," Murphy said.

Bishop Thomas Tobin and the Providence diocese did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the agreement.

In 2002, the diocese reached a $14.25 million settlement with 37 alleged victims of sexual abuse in Rhode Island who filed lawsuits. The cases involved allegations against 11 priests and a nun.