The archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis discovered in 1966 that a Minnesota priest was engaging in sexual contact with boys, but the priest was still assigned to four more parishes over the next 25 years, according to information made public Wednesday by St. Paul attorney Jeffrey Anderson. The accused priest, John Brown, 92, who retired in 1991, said in an interview at his assisted-living apartment in Maplewood that he “very, very vaguely” recalls fondling some boys in a locker room. He was asked if he was sorry. “I have to be sorry,” he said. “Wouldn’t anybody be sorry?” Anderson held …
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The courage of survivors such as David Pususta always inspires and amazes us. David came forward today to not only reveal publicly for the first time that he is a child sexual abuse survivor, but he also discussed his abuse and identified his abuser, who was never publicly named previously. David also filed court documents in Ramsey County District Court seeking to force the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to unseal and make public its secret list of 33 Archdiocesan priests credibly accused of child sex abuse…
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Campaigners have called on Pope Francis, who was elected in March, to make tackling the issue of sexually abusive priests an urgent priority of his papacy. The UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child released its demands for information from the Holy See on Tuesday. The committee said that “in the light of the recognition by the Holy See of sexual violence against children committed by members of the clergy, brothers and nuns in numerous countries around the world, and given the scale of the abuses”, the Vatican should provide detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse c…
At a news conference on Wednesday in St. Paul, prominent clergy abuse attorneys Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan will announce the filing of a pleading requesting a Ramsey County District
Judge to unseal a list of 33 credibly accused priests from court files. Introduce a Minnesota child sexual abuse survivor who will for the first
time reveal his identity and discuss his abuse, identifying his abuser
who has never been publicly named. Reveal confidential Archdiocesan communications pertaining to this
victim’s alleged perpetrator and complaints made by the victim’s parents
in 1966 about the priest examining their children’s sexual organs, and
how the Archdiocese failed to remove him from ministry, thus exposing
other children and communities to potential harm.
The Vatican has fast-tracked Pope John Paul II for sainthood, even though a significant portion of the clerical sex abuse scandal happened on his watch. This is concerning, but not surprising, given the Church’s history of protecting priests instead of children and patting itself on the back while willfully failing to take meaningful action regarding abusive priests or abuse survivors. According to an Associated Press (AP) story, Pope Francis signed a decree on Friday declaring John Paul for sainthood, culminating a “fast-track” process that informally began at John Paul’s 2005 funeral ,…
BOSTON, Philadelphia, Los Angeles. The archdioceses change but the overarching story line doesn’t, and last week Milwaukee had a turn in the spotlight, with the release of roughly 6,000 pages of records detailing decades of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests there, a sweeping, searing encyclopedia of crime and insufficient punishment. But the words I keep marveling at aren’t from that wretched trove. They’re from an open letter that Jerome Listecki, the archbishop of Milwaukee, wrote to Catholics just before the documents came out. “Prepare to be shocked,” he said. What a q…
Archbishop of Milwaukee, Jerome Listecki, is arguing the Hierarchy’s choices to protect priests first and children second should be viewed under the arc of understanding. “The arc of understanding sexual abuse of a minor progressed from being seen as a moral failing and sin that needed personal resolve and spiritual direction; to a psychological deficiency that required therapy and could be cured; to issues of addiction requiring more extensive therapy and restrictions on ministry; to recognition of the long-term effects of abuse and the need to hold the perpetrator accountable for this…
MILWAUKEE — As more victims of clergy sex abuse came forward, then-Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan oversaw a plan to pay some abusers to leave the priesthood after writing to Vatican officials with increasing frustration and concern, warning them about the potential for scandal if they did not defrock problem priests, according to documents released Monday. Dolan’s correspondence with Vatican officials and priests accused of sexual abuse was included in about 6,000 pages of documents the Archdiocese of Milwaukee released Monday as part of a deal reached in federal bankruptcy court with…
(St. Paul, MN) – Jeff Anderson, an attorney for hundreds of survivors of sexual abuse in the Milwaukee Archdiocese bankruptcy case said information in the thousands of documents released in the case today contain “revealing and rev…
Media Advisory June 30, 2013 St. Paul News Conference Monday, July 1 Historic release of secret church documents and depositions detailing Vatican’s role in abuse cases Cardinal Dolan’s involvement in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s activities leading up to bankruptcy revealed Attorneys say documents kept secret in Minnesota contain similar evidence of calculated denial and delay to avoid legal accountability and scandal What: At a news conference on Monday in St. Paul, prominent clergy abuse attorneys Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan will: · &…
Duluth, MN (NNCNOW.com) – A man, who claims as a child, he was sexually abused by a priest, has filed suit against the Catholic Diocese of Duluth, under Minnesota’s new Child Victims Act. Michael DeRoche says he was abused by Father John Nicholson, who has since died.He was abused when he attended St. Rose in Proctor between the ages of 9 and 10. The lawsuit claims the Diocese knew, or should have known, that Nicholson was a danger to children and should have stepped in to protect his victims. In a written statement the Diocese said, “It deeply regrets any long-lasting and devastating effec…
News ReleaseJune 26, 2013 Lawsuit says former St. Rose parish priest in Proctor was child sex abuserArizona man seeks to have Court order the Diocese of Duluth to release the names of the 17 priests the Diocese knows were accused of sexually molesting minors New Minnesota Child Victims Act allows victim to file lawsuit for abuse committed when he was a child in Proctor (Duluth & Brainerd, MN) – Attorneys for a 55-year-old Arizona man filed a lawsuit in St. Louis County today claiming that beginning in the early 1960s officials of the Diocese of Duluth knew a parish priest assigned…