NW Jesuits to Pay Huge Settlement to Sexual Abuse Victims

Remember how people started coming forward about the "dumping ground" for pedophile priests in Alaska? If you don't, here's a snippet from a 2009 Stranger feature, which dealt primarily with Father James Poole:

[One victim] traveled between Stebbins and Nome several times in the late 1970s, spending time in hospitals and receiving homes. By 1977, [she] testified, Poole had given her gonorrhea, and by 1978 she was pregnant with his child. In an interview with The Stranger, she said Poole encouraged her to get an abortion and tell the doctors she had been raped by her father. She followed his advice. "He brainwashed me," she said. "He messed up my head, man."

The NW Jesuits allegedly used a remote area in NW Alaska as a "dumping ground" for such priests as Poole -- those that had been involved in sexual abuse investigations and lawsuits. After filing for bankruptcy in February 2009, the same month that article was written. $166 million paid to over 500 victims was just announced as part of their bankruptcy settlement. The settlement also asks the order to provide written apologies to all victims, and to release official documents to them, such as medical records. So, at least there's that.

This settlement is perhaps the third largest in Catholic Church sexual abuse history, behind the Los Angeles and San Diego Dioceses.

This settlement does not include schools as the province and the schools have declared that they are separate from each other, notably leaving Seattle University wide open for a future lawsuit over former professor Rev. Michael Toulouse.