Settlement Stops Trial Of Catholic Bishops

A six-figure settlement has been reached in a clergy sex abuse lawsuit against two former Bishops of the Roman Catholic Diocese in Springfield Massachusetts.  WAMC’s Paul Tuthill reports

A man who sued the retired bishops alleging they were negligent for allowing a priest to continue to serve despite knowing he’d molested  two boys will be  paid $500,000.  Andrew Nicastro said in statement Friday that his lawsuit against retired Bishops Thomas Dupre and  Joseph Maguire was never about money, but about holding accountable those who failed to protect him from sexual abuse. Nicastro said he was sexually abused by now defrocked priest Alfred Graves  in the early 1980s at St  Patrick’s Parish in Williamstown.  The settlement was  reached four days after a jury was seated and testimony had begun in Hampden Superior Court in Springfield.  Lawyers for the bishops sought previously to dismiss the case arguing the statute of limitation had expired.