Despite agreeing to a settlement regarding sex abuse in the Catholic Church, a man has filed a lawsuit against the church.

According to CBS New York, Emmett Caldwell allegedly agreed to a $75,000 payment through the Catholic Church’s Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program (IRCP) with no help from outside legal representation.

Caldwell’s lawsuit was filed  one day after Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the Child Victim’s Act into law. The Child Victims Act allows a greater length of time for survivors of child sexual abuse to file lawsuits and charges against their perpetrators and the institutions that enabled the abuse.

The new law also allows a one-time “look-back window” for victims to seek civil action despite the amount of time between the present and when the abuse occurred.

Emmett’s lawsuit claims he was advised by lawyers in the IRCP program that represented the best interests of the Church. He claims he and other victims like him were duped into believing that settling for a relatively small amount of money and giving up their rights was the best course for them.

Emmett, now 62, alleges that he was sexually assaulted two or three times a week for three months when he was in elementary school. The lawsuit against the Archdiocese of New York names Father Kevin Kelly, who was a priest at St. Thomas the Apostle back then, as the alleged perpetrator.

Emmett seeks to void the contract he made with IRCP so that he can go to court against the church according to the regulations of the Child Victims Act. Emmett alleges the church pushed him into the program in order to close cases quickly and at low costs before the Child Victims Act became a state law.

Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church

The Vatican just completed a worldwide four-day summit on child sexual abuse, but even then, Pope Francis was accused of helping cover up allegations made against a bishop friend of his.

A bishop in Argentina purportedly was found to have pornography that included boys on his cell phone. Reportedly, Pope Francis named Gustavo Zanchetta a bishop of the diocese of Oran in 2013. Zanchetta purportedly resigned from his post in 2017 with the excuse that he had medical problems and that he could not receive adequate care in Argentina.

When he left Argentina, he allegedly had taken nude selfies, committed sexual assault upon seminarians, acted obscenely and poorly managed the diocese itself.

Less than six months after leaving Argentina, Zanchetta was named to a newly created position at the Vatican when Pope Francis allowed Zanchetta to manage the Catholic Church’s real estate and financial investments. The two purportedly have been friends for nearly 20 years.

With Pope Francis promoting an accused perpetrator of sexual assault to a position so high up in the Vatican, questions remain as to how serious the pope is about eliminating child sex abuse in the Catholic Church.