Catholic church settles another lawsuit Vermont's Catholic Church has settled a second lawsuit accusing its priests of child sexual abuse. The Diocese of Burlington will pay a 44-year-old Colchester man an undisclosed sum in return for his dropping a court case against it. The Burlington Free Press has chosen not to print the man's name because he was a minor at the time of the alleged molestation. "The settlement is confidential in terms of the monetary figure," said the man's lawyer, Richard Holmes of Burlington. "But the diocese made a significant effort to get to a middle ground that would satisfy our client." The Colchester man says he was a preteen altar boy in Burlington when the Rev. Michael Madden sexually abused him at the priest's private camp in Warren in 1970. Madden was convicted of lewd conduct with another minor in 1989. A jury awarded that victim $162,500 in damages before Madden died in 2000. The diocese's settlement comes weeks after it agreed to pay a 34-year-old Massachusetts native, an unspecified low-five-figure sum to drop the church portion of a civil lawsuit involving the Rev. George Paulin, most recently a Ludlow pastor before resigning this year. The man, who lives in Arizona, said he was 15 when Paulin sexually abused him on an overnight visit to Vermont's Northeast Kingdom during a school vacation in December 1984 and January 1985. The church faces at least two civil lawsuits in Chittenden Superior Court. A 46-year-old California investment firm executive alleges that the Rev. James McShane, who resigned as a Rutland pastor this year, sexually abused him as a parochial school student in St. Albans in about 1969. A 38-year-old Burlington man alleges that the former Rev. Alfred Willis, no longer of Vermont, sexually abused and exploited him as a child at St. Ann's Catholic Church in Milton in about 1979. The diocese's lawyer, William O'Brien of Winooski, hoped the latest news showed the church's willingness to resolve charges of priest misconduct. "We really have reached out and tried to resolve all of these cases without regard to legal defenses and to see if we can come up with a figure that makes sense to both sides," O'Brien said. The Diocese of Burlington doesn't have insurance for such cases, so it will pay for any settlement with resources on hand.