by Sol Reform 30 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
It is clearly not a legal public nuisance. The question whether it is sound policy is answered by the First Amendment, unless there are generally applicable state and federal laws dealing with the database. I believe there must be also be a lack of intent to target any particular religion. For exmaple, state polygamy laws are considered suspect by most legal scholars.
They believe the present Supreme Court would not uphold a prior very old decision upholding state polygamy laws.
"It is not meaningful to focus on the number of names we have in our records".
I agree. In fact, it is counter productive. We should not focus on the negative. Negative things like " who molested who " are really not important in the time of the end. Those things can sap our strength and disrupt our spiritual routine.
Seriously, thanks Sol-reform. Keep up the fight!
http://www.wdaz.com/event/article/id/20251/
The Diocese of Crookston was in court again Monday, this time to try to suppress efforts that would make public the diocese's list of known child predators who once served in the priesthood.
This request of names stems from a lawsuit filed late June by a Bemidji woman against the Diocese of Crookston who says Reverand James Porter sexually assaulted her.
Porter left the priesthood in 1974 and 20 years later was convicted of sexually assaulting 28 children in Massachussets. While he passed away in 2005, Porter is suspected of abusing over 100 children in several states including Minnesota.
The plaintiff, known as Jane Doe 4, and her attorneys are now seeking to to have the Crookston diocese release a full disclosure of offenders known only to the Diocese of Crookston, as the lawsuit alleges negligence on part of the diocese for allowing the abuse to happen.
"The judge is going to decide if the list goes out or stays secret, but it is our goal, and I think there is a fierce urgency, that this be revealed and no longer kept secret if this community is going to be safe," Said Attorney Jeff Anderson.
- See more at: http://www.wdaz.com/event/article/id/20251/#sthash.BkdEBfnC.dpuf
Judge to decide on confidentiality of accused clergy: Lawsuit calls for Crookston diocese to release list of priests
Justin Glawe Forum News Service CROOKSTON —
The lists exist, but whether they will be made public is now up to a judge. Steven Aggergaard, an attorney representing the Diocese of Crookston, argued there is no concrete harm in keeping a list of priests accused of sexual abuse private. The statement came in Polk County Judge Tamara Yon’s courtroom.
She must now decide whether the diocese is legally required to release their list as part of a lawsuit filed in June by St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson. Anderson, well known for pursuing cases involving sexual abuse by clergy, represents a Bemidji woman who claims she was sexually abused from 1969 to 1970 by the Rev. James Porter, who was convicted of sexually abusing 28 children. Porter was with the diocese at the time of the alleged abuse of the Bemidji woman.
The lawsuit, in addition to monetary damages, seeks the lists of accused priests compiled by the three defendants — the Diocese of Crookston, the Diocese of Fall River, Mass., and the Servants of the Paraclete, which has housed priests accused and in some cases convicted of sexual abuse at their Jemez, N.M., facility. Porter, who died while a prisoner in Massachusetts in 2005, was a priest in the Fall River diocese and attended the New Mexico facility.
‘Public nuisance’ The lists held by the defendants came as a result of the 2004 John Jay Study, a national effort to chronicle abuse by Catholic priests from 1950 to 2002. In court, Anderson compared the use of public nuisance statutes to hold companies accountable for polluting waterways to the public risk posed by keeping the lists secret.
"The secrecy of the (Diocese of Crookston’s) list represents toxicity to that adult," Anderson said of his client, referred to in court documents as "Jane Doe 4." "And the way it gets most abated is by exposure of the hazard." The counts Aggergaard and lawyers representing the other two defendants moved to dismiss are filed under public nuisance statutes. "The release of the names needs to be traceable to something that makes a difference, quite honestly," Aggergaard said. Anderson has tried, and failed, to force the release of similar lists before.
In July, 2012, the Minnesota Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by Anderson on behalf of a then 45-year-old man who alleged a cover-up of sexual abuse by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona. The decision ensured that a list of 46 priests accused of sexual abuse across the state would remain secret. It is unclear how many priests may be on the lists in Jane Doe 4’s suit, said Stacey Benson, a representative of Anderson’s firm.
But www.bishop-accountability.org , a website dedicated to documenting priests accused of abuse, lists the Diocese of Crookston as having identified five possible offenders. The group of Catholic bishops who administer the site further stated that 32 accused priests were identified in the Diocese of Fall River. The number of accused priests on the list held by the Servants of the Paraclete, however, is not publicly known.
If Yon decides the lists must be released, it would be a "groundbreaking" decision, Aggergaard said. The Rev. David Baumgartner, a monsignor with the Diocese of Crookston, could not be immediately reached for comment. "The (Diocese of Crookston) determined these men to be credibly accused by their own internal investigation," Anderson said. "It causes my client great distress that there are kids just like she was, unwary and unwarned.
http://www.startribune.com/local/east/227161171.html
Demands grow to see secret lists of Minn. priests accused of abuse Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: October 10, 2013 - 5:47 AM
The pressure is on Minnesota dioceses to release lists of priests accused of abusing chi ldren.
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, under fire for its handling of two cases involving sexual misconduct by priests, is also fighting a battle on a second front, facing heightened demands that it release a list held in secret since 2004 of alleged sex offenders among its clergy.
A court hearing on that issue in Ramsey County was where allegations of a child pornography coverup first surfaced last week. A total of six court hearings seeking the release of secret lists, involving every diocese in Minnesota, are slated for this fall, with additional actions targeting about a dozen Catholic religious orders in Minnesota, said St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson, who is leading the effort.
A hearing in Crookston on Wednesday marked the first of those hearings, with attorneys for an abuse victim asking a judge to compel the local diocese to release its list. Hearings in New Ulm, Duluth and Winona are next. Release of the full tally, which might run to dozens of priests facing credible allegations of abuse, could ignite an entirely new round of accusations and lawsuits at a time when many Catholics thought the worst of the clergy sex abuse tragedy was behind the church.
For years, Anderson has asked for the release of the lists as part of his litigation on behalf of abuse victims. And for years, bishops have refused the request, with the church arguing that it would damage priests on the list who were shown to have been falsely accused.
“Every single bishop in Minnesota has kept that list secret,” Anderson said. In the past, the courts have sided with the church on the issue because Minnesota’s statute of limitations gave child sexual abuse victims only until age 24 to take legal action.
But a state law that took effect in May gives victims older than 24 a three-year window to sue for past abuse. Anyone younger than 24 has unlimited time to take legal action.
The new law could provide a key to opening the vaults, Anderson said. “Because of the change in law, there’s a change in our ability to start the process of forcing disclosure of these secrets,” he said.
Patrick Wall, a former priest and a victims advocate at Anderson’s office, said release of the lists would clarify the scope of abuse in Minnesota. “What you will find, more likely than not, are credibly accused child molesters in the ministry, several hundred [abuse] victims in archdiocese files and a much larger financial scandal involved in protecting priests,”
Wall said. Roots in wider scandal U.S. bishops commissioned a national inventory of alleged clergy abuse cases not long after scandals erupted in Boston in 2002. Dioceses were asked to review records over 50 years and submit data for the study, which was released in 2004. About 25 of the nation’s 178 dioceses have released the lists, nearly always as part of legal settlements, according to Terry McKiernan, president of Bishop Accountability, a Massachusetts-based group that tracks clergy abuse.
The lists have been updated by dioceses over the years, McKiernan said. About 33 clergy members in the St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese were on the 2004 version, Anderson said. Another 13 were in the Winona Diocese, five in Crookston, 17 in Duluth and 12 in New Ulm, he said. It’s unknown how many priests are on the list now. read full article 1 2 3 next
The question I still have trouble wrapping my head around is: why make a list of offenders in the first place???
I mean, if you wanted to keep something dirty and institutionalized on the down-low, wouldn't you be disinclined to keep records?
After all, no paper trail=no evidence, right?
You might as well ask Nixon why he tape-recorded all his Oval Office conversations.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/11/11/catholic-church/archbishop-pledges-to-release-names-of-priests-who-sexually-abused-childr by Madeleine Baran, Minnesota Public Radio November 11, 2013
ST. PAUL, Minn. — In a reversal of decades-old policy, Archbishop John Nienstedt said he plans to release the names of some priests who have sexually abused children. The list will be limited to living priests who still reside in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and who have been determined by the archdiocese to be guilty of abuse.
Nienstedt did not say how many names would be released, and it's unclear if the list would include any priests not already known to the public through lawsuits and media reports. Nienstedt's decision comes in response to an MPR News investigation, which found that the archdiocese continues to protect a 74-year-old priest who admitted to sexually abusing children on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota in the mid-1970s.
The Rev. Clarence Vavra admitted to the abuse as part of a psychological evaluation in 1995, but Archbishops John Roach and Harry Flynn kept Vavra in ministry and did not contact police. Flynn asked Vavra to retire in 2003 - and gave him $650 a month in extra retirement payments. Vavra lives half a block from a middle school in New Prague, Minn. Prior to MPR News' report, he was not a known abuser.
• MPR News investigation: Abusive priest hid in plain sight for years; retired quietly to New Prague In a statement announcing his decision to release the priests' names, Nienstedt said, "Serious mistakes have been made in the archdiocese's handling of abuse cases. Offering expressions of regret and sorrow seems so inadequate in the context of the crimes of the offenders and our failures to deal with them properly.
And yet, I must say how sorry I am. My heart is heavy for the victims of this repugnant abuse." The archdiocese will release some of the names this month. More names could be released after a private firm hired by the archdiocese reviews all clergy files. The archdiocese has not selected the firm, according to a spokeswoman.
The watchdog website Bishop-Accountability.org, which tracks offending priests, lists eight Twin Cities priests who might fit the archdiocese's criteria: John Brown, Gilbert Gustafson, Dennis Kampa, Jerome Kern, Michael Stevens, Robert Thurner, Joseph Wajda and Curtis Wehmeyer. • Full coverage: Archdiocese under scrutiny Several archdioceses, including those in Philadelphia and Boston, have released the names of accused priests in response to earlier scandals.
Terence McKiernan, founder of Bishop-Accountability.org, has said the lists often contain few surprises, since so many names have already been made public. THE CHARTER In June of 2002, U.S. bishops adopted a policy that said any priest found to have committed "even a single act of sexual abuse" against a minor should be permanently removed from ministry or dismissed from the priesthood entirely.
The policy, known as the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, was created in response to the national clergy sexual abuse scandal. The priests who met the Charter's criteria for removal from ministry became known as Charter priests. Nienstedt said that all of the Charter priests in the Twin Cities archdiocese "have been removed from ministry." The archdiocese will release the location and status of each named priest, Nienstedt said. However, the list will not include the names of every priest accused of child sexual abuse.
In some cases, the archdiocese has investigated priests for alleged sexual abuse and deemed the claims against them not credible or unsubstantiated. Those priests are not considered Charter priests and would not be named by the archdiocese. They include the Rev. Michael Keating, who was sued last month for alleged sexual abuse of a teenage girl in the late 1990s.
An archdiocese board in 2007 found "insufficient evidence to support a finding of sexual abuse of a minor in violation of the Charter." THE LIST St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson, who's represented thousands of victims of clergy sexual abuse across the country, has asked the archdiocese for years to release the names of offending priests.
Anderson often refers in news conferences to the list of 33 priests that he received from the archdiocese as part of a lawsuit in 2009. The list, which named priests against whom there were credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors, was sealed by a judge and cannot be released without a court order.
"Serious mistakes have been made in the archdiocese's handling of abuse cases."
- Archbishop John Nienstedt At a hearing in Ramsey County on Oct. 3, Anderson asked Judge John Van de North to unseal the list. "Until we know who the credibly accused offenders are and where they are ... the peril exists," he said.
The list of 33 priests is likely much longer than the one the archdiocese plans to release. The earlier list includes the names of priests who are deceased or falsely accused, according to church attorneys who've aggressively fought to keep those names private. Nienstedt and other church leaders have argued that releasing the list of 33 priests wouldn't be fair to priests who have been falsely accused.
"It would be wrong to publicize their names as offenders when they have not been proven to be offenders," Nienstedt said in a statement last month. "Clergy members should be given the same rights as other citizens." Other church leaders have previously sought to downplay the importance of any list of abusive priests.
Former top church official Rev. Kevin McDonough told MPR News last yearthat releasing a list wouldn't appease critics because some would question whether it was accurate. "The list-making and publication that's happened in some places has not resolved the trustworthiness questions," McDonough said.
"If it becomes an issue of trust with people whom we don't think are just running a marketing campaign, I think you'd see us change in a heartbeat." Nov. 11, 2013: Open Letter From Archbishop John Nienstedt Document Pages Zoom CLOSE Previous for “” Next
Judge orders release of names of 46 priests accused of abusing minors in the St. Paul archdiocese and Winona diocese.
http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/234081431.html?page=all&prepage=2&c=y#continue
Judge orders St. Paul archdiocese, Winona diocese, to release lists of accused priests Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: December 2, 2013 - 3:47 PM
Judge orders release of names of 46 priests accused of abusing minors in the St. Paul archdiocese and Winona diocese. The Cathedral of St. Paul.
Photo: Bruce Bisping,
Star Tribune Star Tribune photo galleries
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, as well as the Diocese of Winona, must release the names of 46 priests accused of sexually abusing minors, a Ramsey County District Court judge ruled Monday.
He set a deadline of Dec. 17. Judge John Van de North ordered that the church provide not just the names of the priests but their year of birth, year of ordination, the list of parishes where they served, their current ministerial status, current residence and whether they are still living. The Twin Cities archdiocese has held secret its list of 33 credibly accused abusers since it was compiled in 2004. Another 13 clergy have been on a similar list in the Winona diocese.
“We are greatly relieved that finally there will be disclosure so children will be protected from further harm and those who have been hurt can come forward,” said Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul attorney specializing in clergy sex abuse. Anderson is representing John Doe 1, whose sexual abuse lawsuit sought to force the archdiocese to reveal the names of abusive priests.
Ramsey County District Judge Gregg Johnson ruled in 2009 that the list be kept private in that case. The archdiocese declined to comment on the order, saying it would release a statement later Monday. However, during the hearing, archdiocese attorney Tom Wieser said Archbishop John Nienstedt wanted to put the issue behind him.
“The archbishop believes the whole list issue is becoming a distraction,” Wieser told the judge. “The archbishop wants the healing to begin.” During the court hearing, Wieser offered to provide the information for 29 of the 33 priests on its list, which was compiled a decade ago in response to a new child protection charter created by U.S. bishops.
It includes the names of credibly accused clergy from 1950 to 2002. Wieser said the shorter list could be made public as early as Thursday. But the judge ordered that information for all of the priests on the list be filed with the court. If this information is not provided, a detailed explanation must be presented outlining why, he said.
Bob Schwiderski, director of the Minnesota chapter of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), was in the courtroom. He called the ruling “huge.”
It comes on the heels of a change in Minnesota law that gives abuse victims a three-year window to file lawsuits claiming past abuse, removing the statute of limitations that prevented may cases from moving forward. Making public the names of clergy who have sexually abused children over the years will help heal the wounds of survivors, who often have felt alone in their suffering, he said.
“It might not open a flood gate of new victims, but it will open a flood gate of emotions,” said Schwiderski, who was sexually abused by a priest as a boy. Last month, in response to new allegations of clergy sex abuse against several priests, Archbishop John Nienstedt promised to release some names of accused priests, with court approval.
The lists were created when U.S. bishops commissioned the John Jay College of Law in New York to compile a nationwide statistical summary of the clergy abuse of minors after the church’s clergy sex abuse scandal erupted in Boston in 2002. Dioceses were asked to review their records over the past 50 years and submit data for the study. Among the findings by the Twin Cities archdiocese:
A total of 26 diocesan priests had been accused of sex abuse involving minors. If priests of other religious orders and other dioceses who had worked in the archdiocese were included, seven more priests, 33 in total, were known to have been accused of abusing minors.
Jean Hopfensperger • 612-673-4511
The question I still have trouble wrapping my head around is: why make a list of offenders in the first place???
I mean, if you wanted to keep something dirty and institutionalized on the down-low, wouldn't you be disinclined to keep records?
After all, no paper trail=no evidence, right?
Almost all authoritarian regimes keep records because information is POWER that they may need to use against someone one day ... they just can't resist hanging on to things.
If they were interested in doing the right things they would simply hand the information over to the proper authorities but instead they like to keep control of everything they can.
