CHICAGO (CNS) -- The Archdiocese of Chicago has agreed to pay 16 victims of clergy sex abuse more than $12.6 million in a settlement announced Aug. 12.

In addition to financial payments, the archdiocese agreed to make public additional information and files related to the cases, including the deposition of Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago.

The settlement followed two years of mediation between the archdiocese and attorneys for the victims.

"My hope is that these settlements will help the survivors and their families begin to heal and move forward," Cardinal George said in statement. "I apologize again today to the survivors and their families and to the whole Catholic community. We must continue to do everything in our power to ensure the safety of the children in our care."

Attorney Jeffrey Anderson, who partnered with lawyer Marc Pearlman of the Chicago law firm of Kerns, Frost & Pearlman in representing the victims, called the settlement "a giant step" toward accountability and transparency on the part of the church.

"I call it a great beginning toward not just accountability but toward the kind of transparency that has been lacking in the clerical culture, not just in the Archdiocese of Chicago but elsewhere," he said. "It isn't the end. It isn't a solution, but a beginning to a more cooperative solution to what remains a crisis."

The mediation process involved extensive talks among Anderson, Pearlman and the archdiocese. The process included the sharing of documents and other information and the use of an arbitrator to resolve disputes.

Thomas Gibbons, an attorney and dean of the School of Continuing Studies at Northwestern University, served as mediator. Stuart Nudelman, a retired judge, was the arbitrator.

The settlement covers 14 cases of abuse involving 10 priests between 1962 and 1994. The two others relate to Father Daniel McCormack, who pleaded guilty in 2007 to charges related to the abuse of five children. He is serving a five-year prison sentence.

A statement from the archdiocese said that one of the five cases in which he pleaded guilty remains to be settled.

The incidents involving Father McCormack brought widespread criticism to the archdiocese in 2006, when it was discovered that he remained as pastor of St. Agatha Parish on Chicago's West Side even as police were investigating reports that he had abused two boys. At the time, the archdiocese reported that it had no mechanism to remove the priest despite the investigation because the victim did not make a statement to church officials.

The McCormack case led the archdiocese to revise its policy regarding the reporting of alleged clergy abuse.

The archdiocese released the names of all 11 priests involved in the settlement. The others were Fathers Robert Becker, Thomas Kelly, and Kenneth Ruge, all deceased; Joseph Bennett, who was removed from ministry in 2006; Robert Craig, who resigned in 1993; James Hagan, who resigned in 1997; Norbert Maday, who was removed from ministry in 1993 and is in prison; Robert Mayer, who resigned in 1994; Joseph Owens, who resigned in 1970; and James Steel, who resigned in 1992.

© 2008 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops