Priests' victims get $1 million

Toledo Catholic Diocese has agreed to a $1 million settlement for three sexual abuse victims of Michael Zacharias, former St. Michael Catholic Church pastor. Zacharias was sentenced in U.S. District Court last year to lifelong prison terms on each of two convictions of sex trafficking of minors. He also was sentenced to 20 years in prison on each of three convictions for sex trafficking involving adults. All three victims first met Zacharias while they were students at St. Catherine's School, in Toledo, in the 1999-2000 school year. Zacharias was a seminary student then and was assigned to work at the school and church as part of his training to become a parish priest. Two of the boys were brothers, in sixth grade and kindergarten, and a third boy was in eighth grade. Zacharias was pastor at St. Michael Church, in Findlay, from 2017 to 2020, when he was arrested and charged. Prior to that, he was a priest at churches in Fremont, Van Wert and Mansfield. The Diocese of Toledo issued the following statement: "The Diocese of Toledo will not comment on any outreach work or activities related to any abuse victims as their privacy and healing is of the utmost priority to us." Claudia Vercellotti, cofounder and representative for SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), excoriated the Toledo Diocese as merely doing damage control. "I'm grateful for a small step to help victims heal," she said. "But let's not mince words, we know kids are best protected by complete openness, honesty and transparency. Simply writing a check and skulking away solves nothing. "Fr. Zacharias' crime spree spanned two decades. His career continued to soar," Vercellotti said. She said Bishop Daniel Thomas has been aggressive in other priorities; dealing with abusive priests and preventing abuse is farther down his list, she said. "He's very outspoken. When there were things on the ballot he didn't like, the election, he went out and made YouTube videos, had announcements read at church. He put it in pamphlets and he did mailings," Vercellotti said. "He did a full-court press reaching far and wide. And when he's fundraising, he does the exact same thing. "I've been doing this (victims' advocacy) publicly since 2002. In 22 years, the Toledo Catholic Diocese never, ever, even collectively, has given the same attention to eradicating this (priest abuse) problem," she said. "By their own silence they help embolden and create (it)." She accused Thomas and the Toledo Catholic Diocese of hypocrisy. "You can't stand at the pulpit and (claim) to be the moral authority and then duck and run when it comes to your own priests raping kids," Vercellotti said. "You just can't."