The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston started paying up for its widespread and long-hidden sexual abuse problems in December. The archdiocese wrote 542 settlement checks ranging from $80,000 to $300,000 to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. But victims say the case is far from closed.

Many of those who received money felt a sense of relief that the financial piece of the process is over, but look back upon it as an excruciating experience, according to Ann Hagan Webb, a co-coordinator of the New England division of the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests who has spoken to many of the victims included in the recent settlement.

SNAP is an organization run by survivors of clergy sexual abuse who hold support meetings for victims. Webb, a doctor of psychology and herself a victim of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, said SNAP leaders are often the first people victims talk to outside of their own family about the abuse in their past.

On Dec. 20, two days before the checks were cut, Boston Archbishop Sean O’Malley released a statement saying he understood the money could not compensate for the victims’ agony, but he hoped it would help provide “some measure of healing and peace.”

But Webb said the Boston Archdiocese has neglected its responsibilities following the settlement in two ways. The first is the lack of legal documentation confirming that the Church will provide continued psychotherapy for abuse victims. She said Church leaders have promised the press they will provide therapy, but no document says they will do so.

Webb also said the Church needs to keep track of accused priests more carefully. She said accused priests have been taken out of parishes only to be moved into other communities. The only means the Church has of keeping track of their whereabouts is sending them paychecks, according to Webb.

She called the system “a recipe to abuse more children.”

Church officials dispute Webb’s claim that they are not doing enough to track priests who have been accused of sexual abuse, saying they simply do not have the power to do so.

“We don’t have any legal right to keep track of these men” because the priests have not been convicted, said archdiocese spokesman Rev. Christopher Coyne.

But Coyne also said the Church keeps records of priests’ addresses because they continue to receive salaries, benefits and money for room and board. He also said the archdiocese contacts priests on administrative leave “on an intermittent basis.”

At the same time, the Church is moving to try priests who have been accused of sexual abuse in local, canonical tribunals. He said Boston’s archdiocese has at least 24 priests in mind to be tried in such tribunals. If a priest is found guilty, the archbishop can remove his faculties, preventing him from functioning publicly as a priest.

But victims still suffer even as their alleged abusers are put on trial and settlements are doled out, Webb said.

“The anxiety coming up to the settlement was off the Richter scale [for victims],” Webb said. For victims to “prepare to go in to present themselves in the worst possible light and … say all the bad stuff” during court proceedings was difficult, but gave them the opportunity to move on.

Webb said some victims looked at the money and thought, “Is this what my life is worth?” She said they feel the Church, like other defendants who settle lawsuits, never admitted guilt and never said, “Yes, we were responsible.”

But at the same time, Webb said she feels the Church’s payment implied guilt.

Of the 552 individuals to whom the Church offered settlement money, all but 10 accepted payment. In total, the archdiocese will pay $85 million to the sexual abuse victims.

In a Dec. 16 speech at Boston College, O’Malley told the archdiocese’s priests, “I am anxious for you to explain to your parishioners that the settlement will be paid for … not from parish assets or diocesan or parish collections.”

He said the settlement money will come from short-term loans totaling more than $97 million to be paid off with cash from the sale of the archbishop’s mansion and property in Brighton and from the Church’s insurance companies. The process of selling the nearly 30 acres in Brighton should be completed sometime in the spring.

The archdiocese has refused to discuss offers made on the property for at least 90 days from the announcement of the sale, although Coyne said “we have a lot of offers right now.”