Ken Roosa, an Anchorage lawyer representing 110 Alaska Natives reporting sexual abuse at the hands of Jesuit priests, has reported a tentative settlement of $50 million with an Oregon-based Jesuit province.

The LA Times coverage of the lawsuit also noted the following:

“A dozen priests and three missionaries were accused of sexually abusing Eskimo children in 15 villages and Nome from 1961 to 1987. The flood of allegations led to accusations that the Eskimo communities were a dumping ground for abusive priests and lay workers affiliated with the Jesuit order, which supplied bishops, priests and lay missionaries to the Fairbanks diocese.

Jesuit officials have denied transferring molesting priests to Alaska, saying that it was a prestigious assignment for the most courageous and faithful. In Jesuit fundraising literature, Eskimo villages were called “the world’s most difficult mission field.”

Many plaintiffs said their once devoutly Catholic villages — cut off from the world and without law enforcement — offered a perfect setting for a molesting priest. In 2005, The Times published a story about Joseph Lundowski, a Jesuit deacon who allegedly sexually abused nearly every boy in two small villages on St. Michael Island between 1968 and 1975.

Lundowski’s accusers — now in their 40s and 50s — said the abuse led to alcoholism, violence, emotional problems and suicide attempts. They kept their secret — not even talking about it among themselves — until the Catholic Church sex scandal erupted in 2002.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/us/19priest.html?ref=us

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004022435_jesuit19m.html