Buffalo, NY (WBEN) The Buffalo Catholic Diocese has released its report on Independent Reconciliatory Compensation Program. The report found 127 claimants of abuse were offered compensation awards.
The diocese says it received an unexpectedly large number of claims. In reviewing the claims, the Diocese says a majority of the claims were from alleged instances of abuse decades earlier.
Administrators awarded 127 compensation awards, the smallest $2,000 and the largest $650,000. The average award was $158,622. Claimants could accept or reject for any reason, but the diocese was bound to the awards.
107 such awards have been accepted, totaling $17.6 million, with the average being $164,486.
The diocese, which has released a list of at least 78 priests with substantiated claims of sexual abuse of a child, said it tailored its compensation program to the circumstances of the diocese, and could not make an "open-ended" commitment. The program is being paid from self-insurance liability and investment fund reserves.
Officials said at the start they would consider expanding the program once it ended but on Tuesday ruled that out, citing New York's passage of the Child Victims Act, which could bring additional claims, as well as the "unexpectedly large" number of claims the IRCP received.
The Child Victims Act created a one-year window, beginning in August, for victims to bring sexual abuse claims that otherwise would have been barred by the statute of limitations. The Catholic Church dropped its long opposition to the act after it was revised to treat public and private schools the same.