Survivor says abuse victims must decide
Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News
Published June 7, 2006 at midnight
Victims of sexual abuse by priests will have to decide for themselves whether to take the mediation offer by the Archdiocese of Denver.
That's the view of Daniel Frondorf, co-leader of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, of Cincinnati.
"I'm not here to say one way or another," Frondorf said during a news conference organized by the local SNAP chapter Tuesday near the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
"It may be the right thing for some victims. But for some of us, it's more than the money."
On May 24, Archbishop Charles Chaput announced the formation of a mediation panel in an effort to settle claims by 30 men and women. They have sued the archdiocese, alleging that they had been sexually abused as youths by two former priests.
Frondorf, 40, was in Colorado to talk about a settlement made by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
Frondorf chose not to participate in the settlement and instead pressed forward with a civil lawsuit against a popular priest. Frondorf said the priest molested him when he was 17 in the locker room of a racquetball club. Frondorf did not come to grips with what happened to him until he was 37.
The case was thrown out because the statute of limitations had run out. Frondorf appealed all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court, which ruled against him last Wednesday.
"I don't regret what I did in Ohio," Frondorf said. "I did what was right for me."
He said he took that course because he didn't want the Catholic Church to decide its own punishment for misdeeds or determine how victims would be "healed" from the sexual abuse they suffered.
"It's up to me to decide," he said.
Frondorf had hoped his suit would unlock documents from the archdiocese, detailing what, if anything, officials knew about sex abuses.
Frondorf said he was glad to see that the Denver offer allowed victims to be accompanied by their attorneys when they meet with the mediation panel but was disturbed at the archdiocese's refusal to specify how much money was set aside for settlements.
Jeanette DeMelo, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Denver, said the amount of money was not specified at the advice of Judge Richard Dana, who heads the mediation panel.
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