Archdiocese of Los Angeles to pay $880M in sexual abuse settlement

Archdiocese of Los Angeles to pay $880M in sexual abuse settlement

The agreement, believed to be the largest single settlement of its kind by a Catholic archdiocese, will settle 1,353 claims of childhood sexual abuse.

By Kelsey Ables Updated October 17, 2024 WP

Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez, center, during a Mass in Los Angeles in 2020.
“My hope is that this settlement will provide some measure of healing for what these men and
women have suffered,” he wrote in a letter dated Wednesday. (Damian Dovarganes/AP)

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $880 million to settle more than 1,300 claims of childhood sexual abuse. The sprawling agreement is believed to be the largest single child sexual abuse settlement with a Catholic archdiocese and comes after a state law provided a three-year window to revive past civil claims of sexual abuse involving minors.

Some of the claims date to the 1940s, and the acts are alleged to have been perpetrated by archdiocesan clergy, lay people and religious order priests and clergy from other dioceses who were serving in Los Angeles, a letter from Archbishop José H. Gomez said. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is the largest Catholic diocese in the United States.

“I am sorry for every one of these incidents, from the bottom of my heart,” Gomez wrote in the letter. “My hope is that this settlement will provide some measure of healing for what these men and women have suffered.”

In a joint statement with an attorney for the archdiocese Wednesday, the Plaintiffs’ Liaison Counsel expressed appreciation for the archdiocese “acknowledging its failures that enabled and perpetuated the harm that came to these children” and said that, “while there is no amount of money that can replace what was taken from these 1353 brave individuals who have suffered in silence for decades, there is justice in accountability.”

After the window for reviving claims closed, the archdiocese and attorneys for the plaintiffs underwent mediation last fall to seek a resolution that would allow defendants to provide compensation to victims, while also allowing the archdiocese to continue operating, the statement said.

Gomez said in his letter that funding for the settlement will come from “reserves, investments, and loans, along with other Archdiocesan assets,” and not from donations.

The Catholic Church has been grappling for years with the history of sexual abuse in its institutions around the world, rattling its members, who total more than 1.3 billion, and taking a toll on its reputation.

Allegations of sexual abuse have come from attendees of Catholic institutions in numerous countries including Costa Rica,  Chile,  Italy,  Ireland, Australia and Canada.

Earlier this year, a Washington Post investigation found that for decades, Catholic priests, brothers and sisters sexually abused Native American children at remote U.S. boarding schools they were forced to attend.

In 2007, the same archdiocese in Los Angeles settled sexual abuse lawsuits involving more than 500 alleged victims for $660 million — the largest sexual abuse settlement by a diocese until this week. The new settlement brings the cumulative payout from the archdiocese to more than $1.5 billion.

The situation in California received renewed attention after the state passed a 2019 law that opened a three-year window in which cases were exempted from age limits and allowed alleged victims of sexual abuse to sue up to the age of 40. That window closed at the end of 2022. More than 3,000 lawsuits were filed against the Catholic Church in the state during the window. Facing an influx of suits, the dioceses of Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Rosa and San Diego filed for bankruptcy.

Responding to Wednesday’s news, Morgan A. Stewart, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in the statement, “The massive amount of this settlement reflects the amount of grievous harm done to vulnerable children and the decades of neglect, complicity and cover-up by the Archdiocese.” He urged other institutions in the Catholic Church “to meet their responsibilities and take accountability.”

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) called the settlement “a good start” but said in a statement that “much work remains to be done.”

“We fear and believe there are many more survivors out there who have not yet come forward,” said SNAP Board of Directors Treasurer Dan McNevin. “It is incumbent on Archbishop José H. Gomez to find a way to bring those lost souls in from the cold⍐.” 

Israel complicates election’s final stretch, an issue Democrats hoped would fade

 Israel complicates election’s final stretch, an issue Democrats hoped would fade

Benjamin Netanyahu’s escalating assaults in Gaza and Lebanon have become a growing vulnerability for Kamala Harris amid her bid for the presidency.

By John Hudson

, 

Yasmeen Abutaleb

, 

Mohamad El Chamaa

 and 

Missy Ryan

Updated October 16, 2024 

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris hoped the ongoing violence in the Middle East might simmer below the surface in the final weeks of the presidential race, but fresh Israeli military offensives are making that virtually impossible, U.S. officials and campaign aides say. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sept. 27 in
New York. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set the Gaza Strip ablaze with a renewed bombing campaign and launched a ground invasion into Lebanon alongside aerial strikes in Beirut aimed at annihilating the militant group Hezbollah. He is expected to order an imminent attack on Iran’s military facilities in response to its missile strike on Israel this month.

The rapid escalation has tied the Biden administration in knots, resulting in the United States first calling for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon only to reverse that policy nine days later and openly endorse Israel’s ground offensive.

The whiplash has caused confusion and consternation among Washington’s European and Arab allies who are pushing for the United States to restrain its closest ally in the Middle East. But administration officials remain loath to pick a public fight at such a tenuous moment politically.

“They clearly want to avoid any public confrontation with Netanyahu over Lebanon or Gaza that could result in blowback from Israel’s supporters before the election,” said Frank Lowenstein, a Biden ally and former Middle East negotiator in the Obama administration.

“At the same time, they are sensitive to losing critical Arab American votes in key swing states if their rhetoric leans too far in Israel’s direction,” he added.

The administration has issued statements in response to recent incidents that have drawn international backlash, including Israel’s attacks on U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon; its deadly bombing of Gaza’s al-Aqsa hospital, which engulfed nearby tent camps in flames; and a U.N. report indicating no food has entered northern Gaza in nearly two weeks. Yet those remarks have been carefully calibrated to avoid portraying a sharp break with Netanyahu.

The latest opportunity to do so came Tuesday, when Israeli media published the contents of a confidential letter from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urging Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza or face potential restrictions on U.S. military assistance. Within hours of the letter’s disclosure, spokespeople for the White House and State Department clarified that it “was not meant to be taken as a threat” and that no action would be taken in the next 30 days — pushing any potential punitive action until after the election. They declined to say if weapons restrictions were even on the table.

This account of the Biden administration’s handling of ballooning violence in the Middle East during the election’s final weeks is based on interviews with more than two dozen officials from the United States, Europe and the Middle East as well as Harris’s campaign. The dynamic they conveyed is of an improvisational White House that has followed Israel’s lead into a widening regional war while only marginally influencing Netanyahu’s actions. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their observations.

The war’s spread has alarmed the Harris campaign, which sees the images of dead civilians as complicating her path to victory in key swing states with sizable Arab American and Muslim populations.

“It’s a huge concern. It comes down to people saying, ‘I can’t support anyone who supports a genocide,’” a person who advises the campaign said.

Israel denies that its military operations in Gaza constitute genocide.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appear before
a meeting in Washington in July. (Julia Nikhinson/AP)

‘Look at our track record’

The Biden administration contends that critics underestimate the impact it has had in reducing the scale of Israel’s invasion into Lebanon, increasing the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and preventing a full-scale war with Iran. Officials say they are constantly working to dissuade Netanyahu from bombing Beirut and scale back his planned counterattack on Iran, which some fear could include strikes on nuclear or oil facilities, a prospect that could upend the global economy.

“Look at our track record of intervening to get humanitarian assistance in,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Tuesday. “When we have seen the results not measure up to the standards that we expect, we have intervened with them.”

But according to the administration’s own assessment, the amount of aid delivered to Gaza has dropped by more than 50 percent since the spring. In Lebanon on Wednesday, Israeli airstrikes resumed near Beirut’s southern suburb, hitting what the Israeli military called an underground weapon storage facility used by Hezbollah. Other Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon hit government buildings in Nabatieh, killing at least six people, including the mayor.

Israeli officials say they will not kowtow to the United States about targets in Lebanon, where more than 1,700 people have been killed and 1.2 million displaced since fighting intensified in mid-September. “We will continue to hit Hezbollah mercilessly in all parts of Lebanon — also in Beirut,” Netanyahu said.

No final decision has been made about targets to strike in Iran, Israeli officials say, but an attack is expected in the coming days.

In Gaza, most U.S. officials concede the two sides will not reach a cease-fire-hostage deal by the end of the year. That process was bogged down amid demands from Hamas about prisoner exchanges and Israel on keeping its troops along the Gaza-Egypt border.

The dilemma has caused current and former officials to reflect on how Washington could have avoided the quagmire.

Andrew Miller, who recently stepped down as the State Department’s top official for Israeli-Palestinian issues, said the United States was too quick to accept Israel’s expanding operations without understanding their scope.

“What we did had the effect of endorsing Israel’s military campaign before understanding whether Israel had a viable exit strategy,” he said in an interview. “I don’t think there’s anyone in the administration who could say with a straight face Israel had a clearly defined end-state.”

Inside the Harris campaign, concerns are particularly acute in Michigan, home to one of the nation’s largest Arab American and Muslim populations, with about 300,000 people who claim ancestry from North Africa or the Middle East.

Polls show Harris and her Republican opponent, former president Donald Trump, effectively tied there and in other battleground states that will decide the election. Harris’s clearest path to victory is in the “Blue Wall” states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and she has few paths to the presidency without winning the Wolverine State, where she is holding five events in three days this week.

When Harris first entered the race, her advisers hoped the fact that she had distinguished herself from Biden by speaking more forcefully about Palestinian suffering would help win over a sizable segment of Arab American and Muslim voters who are angry over the administration’s support of Israel.

But winning their support has become more difficult as Israel’s military campaign has intensified with U.S. backing.

Israeli officials say the assaults are needed to prevent another Oct. 7, the day in 2023 that Hamas-led fighters killed 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 250 hostage. The American political calendar is not a factor in the sequencing of the war, an Israeli official told The Washington Post. “The timing of strikes is solely determined by operational considerations, nothing else,” the official said.

The botched cease-fire

Despite a year’s worth of failed efforts to end hostilities in Lebanon and Gaza, U.S. officials saw their last best opportunity during the U.N. General Assembly in New York late last month.

Biden’s envoy, Amos Hochstein, had been holding calls with Lebanese negotiators in Beirut into the early hours of the morning on Sept. 26 as he consulted with Israeli officials in New York on the language of a cease-fire statement.

Eventually, U.S. and French officials received enough positive signals from Israeli and Lebanese counterparts to release a joint U.S.-French statement calling for a 21-day cessation of hostilities. U.S. officials touted the statement to reporters as a “breakthrough.” The optimists in Biden’s inner circle thought a cease-fire in Lebanon could open a backdoor to one in Gaza, ending hostilities just before the election.

Diplomats discussed the details of a possible U.N. Security Council resolution, including semantics like whether to use the word “cease-fire” or “truce,” a Western diplomat said.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu instructed his armed forces to “continue fighting at full force” in remarks that embarrassed U.S. officials who leaned on the prime minister’s top aide, Ron Dermer, to issue a statement in support of the cease-fire discussions.

French and Lebanese officials believed the various sides were close to entering a truce while U.S. officials said they were still days away from implementing an agreement due to discrepancies, including rules for Hezbollah and Israeli troops movements.

Then on Sept. 27, a fleet of Israeli F-15s dropped dozens of bombs on a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut, killing Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah and his top aides. The attack eliminated one of Israel’s most ruthless foes, a dominant political and military figure in Lebanon for decades. It also killed any chance for the U.S.-France cease-fire proposal.

“It all went up into thin air,” the Western diplomat said.

Israeli officials said that Netanyahu was never interested in a cease-fire and that a miscommunication occurred between the White House and the prime minister’s office. U.S. officials say the prime minister changed his mind, either as a result of pressure from his right-wing cabinet or upon receiving actionable intelligence about Nasrallah’s whereabouts.

The next phase

Sensing an opportunity to build on the decapitation of Hezbollah’s leadership, Netanyahu authorized a ground invasion of Lebanon on Oct. 1 to destroy the infrastructure the group used to fire rockets into Israel.

In a televised address, Netanyahu said the people of Lebanon could oust Hezbollah or suffer the fate of Gaza, where more than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to local health authorities. “You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss,” Netanyahu said.

Privately, administration officials were outraged and said Netanyahu’s threats risked uniting Lebanon’s fractured society against the invasion. “He’s an unbelievably flawed messenger,” a senior U.S. official said.

But Biden and his top advisers agreed with Netanyahu’s premise that the weakening of Hezbollah could be exploited to reshape Lebanon’s politics and appoint a new president. A limited incursion was backed by Blinken, Hochstein, Austin, Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, said officials familiar with the matter.

But like with other Israeli promises, the mission expanded, including major bombardments of towns and villages involving civilian casualties that U.S. officials say they strongly oppose.

Analysts are skeptical that the lofty goals of the United States and Israel in Lebanon are achievable before Biden leaves office.

“I don’t think there’s enough time left to accomplish that,” said Andrew Miller, the former State Department official. “At the most, you could potentially see the appointment of a new president, but even that’s going to be extraordinarily difficult.⍐”

தினப்பொறி 18- அதிகாரப் பகிர்வு தேவையில்லை-ஜே.வி.பி

 

EU-GCC summit- Qatar urges ceasefires in Israel’s wars in Gaza, Lebanon

 

Qatar urges ceasefires in Israel’s wars in Gaza, Lebanon at EU-GCC summit

Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani also calls for lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Qatar’s emir has called for ceasefires in Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon and stressed the importance of establishing a Palestinian state at a meeting with European Union leaders in Brussels, Belgium.

The 27-nation EU is seeking to work more closely with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – which brings together Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – in addressing conflicts in both the Middle East and Ukraine.

In opening remarks at the first EU-GCC summit on Wednesday, Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani outlined the need for creating a “sovereign and independent” Palestinian state existing side by side with Israel. He also called for a ceasefire in Israel’s ongoing wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

“The destructive war waged by Israel today on Palestine and Lebanon made war crimes as something normal. That is something that we cannot accept,” Al Thani said.

“We need a settlement for these conflicts. We need to find a solution to the Palestinian cause on the basis of international legitimacy and of the 1967 borders … A ceasefire would be a first step before a serious round of negotiations for a definite solution to the Palestinian cause.”

The summit comes more than a year after Israeli launched its assault on Gaza after the Palestinian group Hamas led an attack on southern Israel, killing at least 1,139 people, mostly civilians, according to an Al Jazeera tally based on official Israeli statistics, and seized around 250 others as hostages.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 42,400 people, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian authorities, and displaced more than 90 percent of the territory’s 2.3 million residents, many more than once.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has been exchanging cross-border fire with Israel for more than a year, saying it is acting in response to Israel’s devastating ground and air assault on Gaza.

Israel’s military last month drastically escalated the fighting with Hezbollah, targeting several senior leaders in the organisation, expanding Israel’s bombardment across Lebanon and sending ground troops into the country’s south.

At least 1,350 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel escalated its attacks last month, according to Lebanese authorities.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned against an escalation of the war in the Middle East and called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon.

“Russia’s war against Ukraine and the Hamas-led terrorist attack against Israel on October 7 have fundamentally undermined regional security in Europe and the Gulf,” she said.

“We need to do all in our power and mobilise all our diplomatic skills to stop the extremely dangerous escalation with now Iran launching a massive ballistic attack against Israel, or Houthis attacking our ships,” she added.

Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from the summit, said the opening remarks from the leaders gave a sense of how the spiralling violence in the Middle East was becoming an “urgent” issue for the international community.

“If this continues, it could further deteriorate into a wider confrontation that could draw the Iranians into a vicious cycle of tit for tat with the Israelis. That could be the moment where the international community would have zero leverage to contain the situation,” he said.

The presence of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – confirmed at the last minute – heightened expectations about the push from the GCC side for a two-state solution.

“The year 2002 was the date when the Saudis launched the Arab Peace Initiative, which calls for all the Arab nations to recognise Israel in exchange for Israelis accepting an independent Palestinian state, [the] same statement reiterated by the emir of Qatar,” said Ahelbarra.

Russia-Ukraine war another priority

Russia’s war on Ukraine was also expected to dominate the meetings, with the EU attempting to garner international support to isolate Russia.

While views differ on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – in particular, the implementation of Western sanctions and the EU’s push to punish Iran for bolstering Moscow’s war effort – there was some hope of closer cooperation on that front.

“I’m confident that we can work together and rely on you to stop this illegal Russian war,” von der Leyen told Gulf leaders.

Though Brussels wants the GCC partners to agree to stronger language on Russia’s military assault, it is not expecting them to fully adopt its position in blaming Moscow.

Al Thani’s opening speech made a brief reference to the conflict on European soil.

“As far as the Ukraine-Russia war is concerned, the GCC position is based on international law principles and the Charter of the United Nations, which preserves the sovereignty of states, their territorial integrity and the noninterference in internal affairs of states,” the emir said.

Talks at the summit are also expected to touch on trade and investment cooperations and visa liberalisation.