RAPE AND RELIGION
 US Shrine for those who experienced sexual abuse, 21 December 2004

Catholic News Service
CHICAGO (CNS) — A memorial shrine for the survivors of clergy sexual abuse to be built by the Augustinians in Chicago is the first attorney Jeffrey Anderson has seen included in a sex abuse settlement, but the Minnesota-based attorney said he does not expect it to be the last. “I think we’ll see more of them,” said Anderson, who worked with Chicago attorney Marc Pearlman in representing 13 plaintiffs who accused former Augustinian priest John D. Murphy of molesting them when they were boys and Murphy was assigned to St. Rita Parish on the South Side of Chicago.

“They share a common wound out of a common source,” said Anderson, who has handled many clerical sexual abuse cases. “They wanted something to acknowledge that, and to be there for other victims. In a way, it’s a legacy of their courage.”

Anderson told The Catholic New World, newspaper of the Chicago Archdiocese, that details of the memorial still must be negotiated with the Augustinians, but he expects it to be built on or near the St. Rita Parish grounds.

Other points of the settlement, announced Dec. 8, include a Mass for survivors of sexual abuse, outreach to potential victims in every parish where Murphy served, and a provision requiring the order to include sex abuse survivors on a panel reviewing new claims of sex abuse.

Plaintiffs in other cases will likely ask for more memorials, Anderson said, as a way to make church institutions acknowledge the harm done to victims and to help provide closure.

“Other plaintiffs will stand on their shoulders, just as they stood on the shoulders of other victims,” Anderson said.

Financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The agreement followed a nine-month mediation process that included the Augustinians, the plaintiffs and the Archdiocese of Chicago. The archdiocese was included in the 2003 lawsuit because five of the victims reported being molested on archdiocesan property. James Geoly, an attorney for the Augustinians, was reported to call the planned memorial “a very positive thing,” while cautioning that, under the settlement, the order did not admit to ignoring or mishandling complaints about Murphy.

The plaintiffs accused Murphy of fondling them when they were boys and he was a priest at St. Rita Parish in the 1970s and ‘80s. Murphy left the priesthood in the early 1990s. He had been working with the public at the John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago until shortly before the lawsuit was filed. END

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