Spokane Catholic Diocese gets more abuse reports

The Catholic Diocese of Spokane has received 21 additional allegations of clergy sex abuse, all by adults who contend they were sexually abused by clergy years ago.

Attorney Greg Arpin said the diocese will fight some of those claims in court, on the grounds they do not meet the legal threshold from a settlement with victims that brought the Spokane Diocese out of bankruptcy several years ago.

"We want to make sure the strict criteria of the settlement plan for allowing future claims is followed," Arpin said Tuesday.

Seven of the claims have been allowed by a court-appointed reviewer who weighs the merits of the allegations and then decides how much money a victim receives. Kate Pflaumer, a former U.S. attorney for Western Washington, denied five of the claims, and the remaining nine are pending.

The diocese will challenge some of Pflaumer's decisions in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

In a letter to parishioners, Bishop William Skylstad of Spokane said the diocese contends that some of the seven allowed claims should have been denied.

"We believe we have strong legal arguments in this matter," Skylstad said.

As part of the initial $48 million settlement to 184 victims, claims had to be filed by March 10, 2006. But the settlement set aside $1 million to handle what were expected to be a small number of subsequent claims.

If that fund is depleted, the diocese and its individual parishes are on the hook to keep a minimum of $200,000 in the fund until 2016 to deal with future claims. The parishes have put up property as collateral for that obligation.

"The parish properties might well be at risk," Skyslstad said.

An advocate for victims of priest sex abuse said the new allegations show that the issue is far from resolved, despite the past settlement.

"It's just immoral and impractical to try to force deeply wounded victims of horrific child sex crimes to meet some arbitrary deadline that's set up to benefit the wrongdoers," said Barbara Dorris with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

"Traumatized victims step forward when they can, not when church bureaucrats and lawyers try to tell them they must," she said.

The diocese declared bankruptcy in late 2004 to deal with scores of claims of sex abuse. The diocese and its 82 parishes agreed in 2007 to pay $48 million to 184 victims of sexual abuse. The deal forced the diocese to liquidate nearly all of its assets.