$104M awarded to sexual abuse victims of Mount Cashel and N.L. priests
A third-party insolvency monitor has put forward a sum of $104 million to pay the victims of sexual abuse by Newfoundland and Labrador clerics, but it's not certain how much money will actually flow to hundreds of claimants.
A four-page document filed with Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court by George Kinsman, a senior vice-president of Ernst & Young, puts the net claim award at $104,074,667.
Among the 367 claims filed, 292 have already been accepted, while 65 were dis‐ allowed and 10 are consid‐ ered pending.
The document says the average payment to a claimant is $356,417.
The document, released Friday, is the latest step in a saga that started in 1987 with charges against one priest and would expand to a series of scandals that closed the Mount Cashel orphanage in St. John's and recently forced the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corp. to sell churches and other property to settle claims.
But the church's earlier bill was estimated to be $50 million, when there were about 100 claimants.
The church has raised more than $40 million by sys‐ tematically selling off assets on the Avalon Peninsula, in‐ cluding a $13-million deal for the Newfoundland and Labrador government to buy former Catholic school prop‐ erties.
'I think they've got that right'
Lawyer Geoff Budden, whose firm represents 189 of the accepted claims, told CBC News he's satisfied with the third-party monitor's calcula‐ tion.
He noted that some clien‐ ts, though, may feel unsatis‐ fied.
"There are individuals who feel the numbers are perhaps a little low. There are others who feel or are quite pleasantly surprised," he said Friday.
"So there may be individu‐ als who appeal, but as an ag‐ gregate, from my familiarity, the law … I think they've got that right."
Budden said different claimants have had very dif‐ ferent experiences over the years. Some spoke to the police decades ago, while some stepped forward about historical abuse at the hands of clergy or Christian Broth‐ ers, the lay order that ran Mount Cashel and several schools, only in the last few years.
"We see it really, I guess, as not as an aggregate num‐ ber, but as 200 individual numbers," he said. "So that's 200 conversations we have to have with clients.… In each instance, it's a triggering con‐ versation."
While the $104-million settlement is more than dou‐ ble what has been raised through land sales, Budden still expects all of his clients to receive what they are owed.
"I'm optimistic that we can. So yes, you could say I'm confident," he said.
Property sales still un‐ derway
The church is still selling properties, and Budden there's potentially a large payout from two insurance policies. Both insurance com‐ panies are fighting such a move.
The onus, Budden said, is now on the Newfoundland and Labrador government to finalize a matter that has dragged on for decades.
"I think the scenario is that the government, which is already facing a number of lawsuits, will at some point and some point fairly soon we will have constructive dia‐ logue with the government with the view to the govern‐ ment meeting its legal obliga‐ tions," he said.
The Mount Cashel scandal exploded in 1989, and in‐ cluded reports of how a 1975 police investigation was quashed by the provincial Justice Department. The Hughes inquiry, ordered by the Newfoundland and Labrador government, found numerous failings in the child protection system.
Meanwhile, the Winter commission - which was es‐ tablished by the Archdiocese of St. John's - detailed how church officials would fre‐ quently transfer priests ac‐ cused of sexually abusing children to other parishes.
Subsequent complaints came forward over the years, with abuse claims at Mount Cashel alone dating as far back as the 1940s.
The court filing notes that the accepted claims include deceased claimant estates.
The archdiocese was found liable for Mount Cashel in 2020. The following year, it filed for insolvency.
There is an appeal period of 45 days.
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