Archdiocese to Settle 15 Abuse Suits for $21 million

The Archdiocese of San Francisco agreed Friday to settle 15 pending lawsuits involving allegations of sexual abuse by priests under its jurisdiction for $21.2 million, according to a statement from the church.

Under the settlement, which was brokered by a retired judge who has been mediating 60 separate cases against the Roman Catholic archdiocese, it will pay out $6.6 million, with the rest of the money coming from its insurers. Several of the original 60 cases have already gone to trial.

The 15 cases represent about one-quarter of the remaining priest abuse lawsuits naming the San Francisco Archdiocese as a primary defendant; 10 of them involve allegations against one former San Jose priest, the late Father Joseph Pritchard.

“During the course of the recent trials and settlement discussions, we have heard the victims’ anger and grief over the impact that the abuse has had on their lives and the lives of their families and friends,” said San Francisco Archbishop William Levada.

“It is our hope that the settlement of these cases will facilitate the process of healing for these victims,” he said.

San Jose attorney Robert Mezzetti Jr., the court-appointed mediator, said retired Judge Coleman Fannin deserves credit for getting the insurance firms to pay up instead of having the cases proceed to trial.

Besides Pritchard, who died in 1988 before most of the allegations against him surfaced, other former priests named in the suits include three who served in the San Jose area in the 1970s: Fathers Leonel Noia, Arthur Harrison and Gregory Ingels, said Maurice Healy, an archdiocese spokesman.

Ingels was an expert on church law who co-wrote a document on dealing with sexually abusive priests and was a priest at St. Bartholomew Church in San Mateo, Calif., until 2003. Harrison was a pastor at several parishes in Santa Clara and Marin counties before he retired.

Noia served as pastor at St. Patrick’s parish in San Jose, where he endeared himself to children, Mezzetti said, with an anti-authority attitude that included distributing marijuana and alcohol to minors.