The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has offered $55 million (€48.56m) to hundreds of people who say they were sexually abused by priests in an effort to end a scandal that has tarnished the church's image.
An attorney for the plaintiffs called the move significant and said the offer was under consideration by a steering committee representing those who filed more than 542 claims of sexual abuse by priests. But he said it could take months before a final settlement was reached.
"We are considering the offer," Carmen Durso, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said on Friday. "It's a promising first step. We will consider it but we're not there by any means."
Lawyers in the case would not comment on the size of the proposal put on the table, but said that the Archdiocese's offer to pay for the victims' counselling in addition to the proposed $55 million came as a surprise.
"It's an apparent good faith offer," said Mitchell Garabedian, who represents 120 people in the suit. "I believe the Bishop wants to resolve this quickly."
The archdiocese did not return telephone calls seeking comments.
According to court documents, the archdiocese also agreed to concessions including waiving the statute of limitations on claims and waiving proof of negligence, which would have required that accused priests still be alive for claims to be considered.
"This is substantial," Durso said, adding that some claims dated as far back as 1950. Lawyers will now present the offer to the claimants. At least 95 percent of them have to accept the offer for the case to be settled.
"Any kind of closure which would be greeted with satisfaction by both parties would be welcomed so that we could move on," said Bill Donohue, chairman of the Catholic League in New York, the country's largest Catholic civil rights group.
The settlement offer came less that two weeks after Boston's new Bishop, Sean O'Malley, who has a reputation as a top trouble shooter within the church, was installed.
O'Malley last month said that protecting children was his top priority; he promised to heal the wounds inflicted on the church by the scandal.
"O'Malley has done what many before him didn't because he has the courage of his convictions," Donohue said.
In the early 1990s, O'Malley resolved lawsuits involving a paedophile priest when he headed the troubled Fall River diocese in Massachusetts. James Porter, a former priest, is now serving a prison sentence on more than thirty counts of molesting children.
Last December, Cardinal Bernard Law resigned his position over his handling of the scandal, which made headlines around the world. Law was criticised for reassigning priests to other parishes or letting them remain in their jobs despite accusations of sexual abuse against them.
Law, for instance, reassigned convicted paedophile and now-defrocked Boston priest John Geoghan while knowing of accusations that he molested more than 130 children over 30 years.
Geoghan was sentenced last year to up to 10 years in prison for molesting a boy. The archdiocese also settled a case for $10 million brought by 86 claimants against Geoghan.