As news outlets have been reporting over the past few weeks, the dioceses of the Catholic church in Seattle, Louisville and Kansas City have reached settlements to resolve sexual abuse lawsuits filed by parishioners or former parishioners.  These are of course just the latest in a serious of ongoing settlements over alleged sexual abuse of young people by Catholic priests.

The Seattle Archdiocese has announced a settlement of $380,000 with two unnamed plaintiffs who claim they were molested by two priests, now deceased.  The settlement includes $270,000 to one man whose initials were given as M.P., $110,000 to another, initialed J.P.

The Kansas City diocese paid a $225,000 settlement to Frank Scheuring from Independence, Missouri, who alleged that a priest began abusing him when he disclosed in confessional that a neighbor was abusing him.

Many lawsuits against other dioceses feature more plaintiffs and substantially higher sums of money.  Previously, the Pittsburgh archdiocese reached a $1.25 million settlement with 32 victims, the San Diego archdiocese paid out $198.1 million to 144 victims, and the Los Angeles archdiocese paid out a whopping $764 million.

More recently, the Louisville, Kentucky archdiocese agreed to pay $25.7 million to 243 people who alleged that they were sexual abuse victims, and 11 of the lawsuits were against retired Monsignor Robert Bowling.  One of the plaintiffs is a woman who accused Bowling of molesting her while she was pregnant and in the hospital.  This settlement is the largest of its kind in Kentucky.