The Archdiocese of Chicago has reached an $800,000 settlement over claims of sexual abuse by the late Rev. George Clements, the famed Holy Angels pastor, and four other Chicago-area religious figures, according to lawyers representing the alleged abuse victims.
An attorney for Clements’ now 54-year-old alleged victim called Tuesday for Cardinal Blase Cupich to place Clements on the archdiocese’s public list of “credibly accused priests.”
“The hiding has to stop. The secrecy has to stop,” Boston-based attorney Mitch Garabedian told reporters.
The settlement — a copy of which was emailed to the Chicago Sun-Times — does not include any admission of wrongdoing on the part of the archdiocese.
The settlement also references Brother Edward C. Courtney, who served at all three Chicago-area Irish Christian Brothers high schools — Brother Rice on the Far South Side, St. Laurence in Burbank and Leo on the South Side — in the 1960s and 1970s as well as order-run schools in Michigan and Washington. The Chicago Sun-Times reported last year that Courtney has been accused of being a “serial sexual predator” responsible for abusing more than 50 children, according to records, interviews and news accounts.
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