A Seattle woman who said she was sexually molested by a Yakima priest
when she was a teenager has settled a lawsuit against the Catholic
Diocese of Yakima for $287,500.
Known in the lawsuit as M.C., the 57-year-old Yakima native said that
Christopher Breen, who served as a priest and supervising pastor at St.
Paul Cathedral in the 1960s and early 1970s, repeatedly molested her
beginning when she was a sophomore in high school.
"I feel a deep sense of betrayal," M.C. said in a phone interview Wednesday from Seattle.
"I was a Catholic girl who was having family problems and,
unbelievably, the person you'd least expect turned out to be a
predator," she said.
M.C. and Breen had a private relationship, which included
unsupervised trips to Snoqualmie Pass and Mount Rainier, she said.
The
relationship of four years was discontinued when Breen told M.C., then
19, that he had met someone else.
The case was filed in King County, where both M.C. and Breen live, in September 2008.
A telephone call to Breen's home in Kenmore on Wednesday was not
returned.
He left the priesthood more than 30 years ago, then worked as
executive director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of King County, which is
now called Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound.
Breen, now in his 70s, retired from Big Brothers Big Sisters several
years before the lawsuit surfaced. He is now married to a woman he met
in Yakima.
The Rev. Robert Siler, chief of staff for the Yakima diocese, said
that while the diocese did not admit liability, there was a desire to
settle the case to let both M.C. and the diocese move forward.
"We hope that she can now move on with her life and find healing and peace," Siler said.
The settlement money was covered by insurance, he said.
In a prior, separate settlement, Breen himself paid M.C. a confidential, undisclosed amount.
M.C. alleged she went to Breen, her pastor at St. Paul's, in 1968 to
seek counseling because she was upset that her parents were divorcing.
She says the relationship evolved from his giving her guidance to sexual
molestation.
A graduate of Yakima's Carroll High School (now closed) and Western
Washington University, M.C. believes Breen took advantage of her at a
vulnerable time.
"If you can't trust the pastor of a Catholic church, who could you trust?"
She continued, "He told me it was our special secret. I thought he knew the deeper rules of God more than I did."
M.C. said that it wasn't until she was much older that she realized
Breen had taken advantage of her. "I now realize I was manipulated and
totally played.
"I put my faith and trust in (Breen). What he did was very damaging."
Although the settlement is complete, M.C. said that she never received an apology from the diocese.
"That's heartbreaking to me," she said. "I was hoping they would reach out with kindness from one human being to another."
Siler said he wasn't aware that M.C. had asked for an apology.
"Whenever anyone comes forward and says they've been hurt by the church, we cooperate with the process," he said.
He added, "We're very sorry for any abuse the victim suffered."