Join the Conversation
Send your thoughts to Letters to the Editor. Learn more
The Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province have reached a settlement in a lawsuit alleging nearly a dozen women religious from the order abused children on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana.
The case in Lewis and Clark County, Montana, was filed about the same time as a separate, but similar case against the Diocese of Helena, Montana, which alleged a covered-up of abuse by priests across the diocese. Settlements for both cases are now combined into one action awaiting the approval of the federal bankruptcy court in the district of Montana.
The lawsuit against the Ursulines alleged that 11 sisters who served at the St. Ignatius Mission church and school on the Flathead reservation from the 1940s to the early 1970s physically, sexually and emotionally abused boarding and day school students. The school is about 40 miles north of Missoula. The province, based in Santa Rosa, California, covers several western states.
