The Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the country, agreed to pay $880 million to 1,353 people who claim they suffered sexual abuse as children from Catholic clergy, according to a joint statement released Wednesday by lawyers for the plaintiffs and the Archdiocese.
The agreement, considered by experts to be the largest payment made by a diocese, brings the total accumulated by Los Angeles in lawsuits for sexual abuse to more than $1.5 billion.
Following the announcement of the agreement, Archbishop José H. Gómez said in a statement: “I am sorry for every one of these incidents, from the bottom of my heart,” wrote Archbishop José H. Gomez in an Oct. 16 letter to LA Catholics. “My hope is that this settlement will provide some measure of healing for what these men and women have suffered.”