SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (RNS) The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, Mass., announced on Tuesday (Dec. 2) that it has paid $4.5 million to 59 alleged victims of clergy abuse, including two men who named former Springfield Bishop Thomas L. Dupre as their abuser.
The payments went out on Nov. 20 and ranged from $5,000 to $200,000, according to statements released by the diocese.
This resolution followed a $7.7 million payout to dozens of claimants in 2004. They were recently offset by an $8.5 million settlement three insurance companies paid to the diocese of Springfield, after initially resisting coverage of the abuse claims.
Some claimants said the recent payments they received from the diocese after years of negotiations left them cold, and still haunted by decades-old memories.
Donald Smith Henneberger, 50, of Springfield, said he feels unsatisfied by the $75,000 he received for abuse he suffered when he was 11 and 12.
“This second round of victims, who seemed to have to wait and suffer more, are being treated like second-class citizens,” said Henneberger, who estimates that he was abused between 75 and 100 times by a priest in Pittsfield while he was a paper delivery boy for a church there.
Dupre resigned abruptly in 2004 when questioned about the abuse allegations. He fell under a criminal probe and was indicted by a grand jury that year for sexual assault of a child.
However, Hampden County District Attorney William M. Bennett said he could not prosecute because the legal deadline to pursue the allegations had run out.
Dupre went to a Maryland treatment center for troubled priests after resigning. A lawyer for Dupre refused to confirm the cleric’s whereabouts.
Diocesan spokesman Mark E. Dupont said the diocese intends to support the claimants beyond the settlement.
“We didn’t cut these checks to walk away from these people,” he said. “The harm that has been done to many of these individual will take a lifetime to heal, if ever.”