The Archdiocese of Hartford, amid a number of significant revelations about years' worth of sexual abuse cases, including the $50 million-plus in settlements paid out, announced that it has hired retired Superior Court Judge Antonio Robaina to investigate charges of child sex abuse by clergy.

Archbishop Leonard Blair delivered the news Tuesday in a sweeping series of announcements and a video posted on the archdiocese website.

Robaina, now of counsel with the Hartford office of McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, has been engaged “to conduct an independent investigation and to provide a comprehensive and transparent accounting of sexual abuse of minors by clergy in the Archdiocese of Hartford,” Blair said. He added the report will also include the response from the archdiocese.

Blair talked at length about that response Tuesday, following up on three promises he said he made in 2018 for the first of the new year. Those included launching the investigation, plus disclosing the names of priests accused of sexual abuse and the amount paid to settle such claims.

Also on the archdiocese website Tuesday were the names of 48 priests Blair said have been credibly accused of sexual abuse in Hartford, as well as a financial report. The financial report disclosed $50.6 million already paid to settle 142 allegations of clergy sexual abuse of minors. The perpetrators in those cases included 29 Hartford clergy and three priests from other diocese for a total of 32 accused. They averaged more than four victims each.

Former Superior Court Judge Antonio Robaina

The average settlement was about $356,000. The smallest was $3,000. The largest was $1.6 million. But the report said the majority of the settled claims were against nine priests. One of those priests, now deceased, had 20 claims against him settled for a total of $10.7 million.

The archdiocese paid $24.5 million from its general reserve fund and $26.1 million from insurance recoveries, the report said.

Most of the settlements—98 percent, or $49.6 million—were paid for allegations of clergy child sexual abuse before 1990, the church said. Most of the money was paid after 2000, and most of the charges dated back to the 1970s, it said.

Blair said he has been a bishop for 20 years. “Most of them have been overshadowed by the sin and scandal of sexual abuse and its devastating effect on victim survivors and their families, and on the morale of our priests, and on the faith and even the practice of faith, among the Catholic people, not to mention the general public.”

Blair expressed sorrow that many leaders in the church have “failed to grasp the spiritual and moral devastation that results from sexual abuse.” He lamented “misguided attempts” to protect the abuser or the church. And he repeatedly used the word “crime” as well as the word “sin” to describe the abuse. He said the only recent allegations of abuse by clergy in Hartford concluded in criminal prosecution.

“Whatever institutional worries present themselves to me as a bishop as a result of abuse, it takes only one personal meeting with a victim survivor for me to see that any institutional concerns are insignificant compared to the deep spiritual and psychological wounds and suffering that can and often do result from sexual abuse by a priest,” Blair said.

Blair also said he has directed the Office of Safe Environment and the Protection of Children to work with Catholic Charities to organize a support group for victims of clergy sexual abuse. He said Catholic Charities will be training clinical staff in the field of trauma and sexual abuse treatment. The group will develop another support group for survivors of sexual abuse by any perpetrator—clergy or otherwise, he said.

“It is my hope that Catholic Charities can bring hope and healing to as many victims as possible,” he said.