The Boston Archdiocese said Monday it has settled lawsuits filed by four men who claim they were sexually abused by the Rev. Paul R. Shanley, a key figure in the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church.
Financial terms of the agreement reached late Sunday night were not disclosed. An attorney for the alleged victims said each plaintiff will get more than the maximum $300,000 award in the landmark $85 million settlement reached last September between the Boston Archdiocese and more than 550 alleged victims.
The four alleged victims - Gregory Ford, Paul Busa and two other men who asked not to be identified - had refused to sign on to the earlier settlement. Their lawyer, Roderick MacLeish Jr., vowed to continue aiding prosecutors in their pending criminal case against Shanley.
"Paul Shanley was a human wrecking ball throughout eastern Massachusetts for decades," MacLeish said. "Our office, as well as the victims, will continue to do anything we can to secure Father Shanley's conviction."
Ford, now 26, says he was repeatedly raped by Shanley, beginning at age 6, and has been the most outspoken of the four victims.
"I would like to move forward with my life in a quiet manner," he said in a statement read by his younger sister, Kathryn Ford, at a news conference in MacLeish's office. "My hope is that all of the survivors can find some peace in their lives as well."
Shanley has pleaded innocent to charges of raping Ford, Busa and the two others at St. Jean's Parish in Newton in the 1980s. He was released on $300,000 bail last December, and is awaiting trial.
Archbishop Sean O'Malley has met with the Fords and other alleged Shanley victims since his appointment last year. In a statement issued Monday, church officials commended Ford's parents for their devotion to their son.
"The archbishop hopes that this settlement will bring some measure of healing to the Ford family," the archdiocese said in a statement.
Shanley, once known for his street ministry to gay and troubled youth, became a focal point of the scandal after internal church records - released by court order as part of the lawsuit - showed officials did not remove him from parish work after receiving complaints about his advocacy of sex between men and boys. The files also said he attended a meeting of a group that later became known as the North American Man-Boy Love Association.
The graphic nature of the alleged abuse by Shanley and other priests detailed in the files revealed the extent of the problem in the Boston Archdiocese and hastened the departure in December 2002 of Cardinal Bernard F. Law.
O'Malley, who succeeded Law as leader of the nation's fourth-largest diocese, approved the settlements Sunday night, according to MacLeish, whose firm also represented a majority of the plaintiffs in the $85 million settlement.
Ford's father, Rodney, thanked O'Malley.
"The way that he took our family aside and dealt with us personally, is something that I thank him personally for," Rodney Ford said. "This would not have happened without him. If Cardinal Law was still here, we'd still be battling this."
In his statement, O'Malley condemned claims made last year by a former church attorney, who said Rodney Ford sexually abused his son. O'Malley replaced the church's legal team when he succeeded Law.
"One of the worst days I had to live with was when they accused me abusing my own son," Rodney Ford said. "I withstood that. I'm here to say that that never happened. Father Shanley abused my son and other kids."
Shanley's niece, Teresa Shanley, declined to comment when reached by The Associated Press.