Betrayal by The Investigative Staff of the Boston Globe

flash point for the scandal that would engulf the Catholic Church.
    Garabedian and his associate, William H. Gordon, had taken a novel approach when filing what would ultimately total eighty-four lawsuits on behalf of eighty-six plaintiffs. Other attorneys bringing clergy sexual abuse lawsuits had sued the Archdiocese of Boston. But like all nonprofit organizations in the state, the archdiocese is protected by a doctrine of charitable immunity that limits its liability to $20,000. Because of that cap, attorneys with sexual misconduct claims had often settled with the archdiocese for modest sums without even going to court, or shortly after filing suit.
    But instead of suing the archdiocese, Garabedian sued Cardinal Law, five of Law's bishops, and several other Church officials, claiming that all of them knew of Geoghan's sexual misconduct and were therefore responsible for it. Garabedian even filed notice to depose Law.
    The strategy paid off — at least initially. In March of 2002, after the
Globe
stories on Geoghan had appeared and before Law's scheduled deposition, Garabedian and attorneys for the archdiocese reached a settlement agreement hammered together by mediator Paul A. Finn. Under the agreement, the eighty-four lawsuits would be settled for between $15 million and $30 million, with the final amount to be determined by Finn and his associates, who would evaluate each claim and award an individual settlement to each plaintiff.
    But the avalanche of disclosures about Geoghan and other priests that had begun in January produced a wave of new alleged victims — and potentially enormous liability for the archdiocese. At least five hundred people claiming they'd been sexually abused by priests retained lawyers in the first four months of 2002. And in May, with donations to the Church falling off rapidly, the archdiocese reneged on the deal — stunning victims and many faithful Catholics.
    That the Geoghan revelations would produce a torrent of new claims should have come as no surprise to the Church. In the years immediately following the Porter case, there had been many new complaints. In fact, during the ten years after Porter's victims started coming forward, the Church quietly settled child molestation claims against at least seventy priests in the Boston archdiocese, with MacLeish representing many of the victims. In some cases, he said, Church officials eager to dispense with complaints quickly and quietly would refer the victims to him.
    MacLeish also said later that he eventually grew to despise the settlements, because he knew that the confidentiality agreements that went with them helped keep clergy sexual abuse hidden. “It sickened me to see so many of these cases going by unnoticed,” he said. And so after a year of urging clients to sign the agreements, MacLeish says, he told a reporter that his clients had made sexual abuse allegations against several priests who remained in active ministry. Still, Philip Saviano, a victim of clergy sexual abuse who hired MacLeish to represent him, criticized MacLeish and other lawyers for being too eager to have their clients settle their claims. Only through filing lawsuits, Saviano said, arc victims likely to obtain Church records shedding light on precisely who had responsibility for the priests who abused them. Saviano, for instance, filed suit against the Worcester, Massachusetts, diocese in the early 1990s, claiming he was abused by Father Holley, the priest sentenced to prison in New Mexico, and received Church documents showing that six bishops in three states knew about Holley's record of abuse. Saviano also refused to sign a confidentiality agreement, although he might have paid a price for that decision. When Saviano settled, he received only $12,500 from the Worcester diocese, whereas two other victims who claimed abuse by Holley and agreed to stay silent each received more.
    One of the most notable public statements issued to help the Boston archdiocese