For sale: Canadian diocese.

ST. JOHN'S, Canada -- The Roman Catholic Diocese of St. George's in Newfoundland is selling all its properties except cemeteries in a tentative agreement to compensate 39 victims of sexual abuse, 38 of whom were abused by a single priest, the Canadian Broadcasting Company reports. The 150 sites include churches, rectories, and missions. The diocese was the first in Canada to declare bankruptcy in the face of $40 million in claims. A tentative settlement will result in the payment of about $10.5 million to victims.

"People will be angry, people will be upset, people will be discouraged, people will be disheartened, people will quit," commented Bishop Douglas Crosby. The diocese is asking area Catholics to donate money to repurchase up to a third of the property.

"If a settlement had been reached out of court years ago, it probably would have been much less," said Greg Stack, lawyer for 37 of the plaintiffs, commenting on the diocese s unwillingness to settle the case, which went all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court.

Allegations of abuse stretching from 1961 to 1989 were first brought in 1990 against Father Kevin Bennett, who served four years of a 20-year prison sentence.