Mediation set for Oregon Jesuits sex abuse case

PORTLAND – Mediation has been scheduled for a $15 million sex abuse lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Church in Oregon after a judge refused to dismiss the case.

A woman who claims she was abused as a child in the mid-1960s filed the lawsuit against two Jesuit priests, James Poole and Frank Duffy.

Jesuits belong to the Province of the Society of Jesus, a religious order of the Catholic church.

Poole has been named in dozens of similar cases in Alaska, while Duffy was the target of several claims in the Archdiocese of Portland bankruptcy.

The archdiocese was the first Catholic diocese in the nation to declare bankruptcy in July 2004 because it was facing millions of dollars in sex abuse lawsuits.