The nation's bishops wrapped up their conference in Dallas over the weekend with a new policy on handling abuse within the Catholic Church.
News Center 5's Kelley Tuthill said that Cardinal Bernard Law may have hoped to return to Massachusetts with things looking up in the sex abuse crisis. But instead, alleged victims are erupting in anger over a report that the archdiocese plans to put a limit on how much it will pay out to settle lawsuits.
"It's crazy. I can't take this much more. It is totally eating away mentally at me," alleged victim Tony Muzzi said.
The Boston Herald reported that the archdiocese will pay out no more than $30 million to settle hundreds of claims.
"In this case we seem to have the church saying, 'OK, you caught us. We had child molesters within our ranks. We supervised those child molesters. You caught us so we are going to draft a policy now that you should be happy with. We are going to implement that policy and you should be happy with that implementation, and by the way, this is how much money we are going to give you.' I've never heard of another scenario like this in my life," alleged victims' attorney Mitchell Garabedian said.
Garabedian spent nearly one year working on a $20 million settlement for 86 alleged victims of defrocked priest John Geoghan. The church later backed out of that deal.
Officials now want $30 million to cover about 400 plaintiffs.
"I believe that the Catholic Church is one of the richest entities in the world. They have the money. They could lose $100 million like we could lose $100 and not even feel it," Muzzi said.
Garabedian said that he will continue to fight to have the original settlement enforced.