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	Survivors Group Seeks Investigation of Green Bay Diocese By Annysa Johnson Milwaukee Journal Sentinel December 21, 2010 http://www.jsonline.com/features/religion/112291754.html Victims of clergy sex abuse on Tuesday asked federal prosecutors to investigate the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay for obstruction of justice, accusing it of destroying documents related to priests' sexual abuse of children. Members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, met with Assistant U.S. Attorney William Roach in the Green Bay office of the Eastern District of Wisconsin. They delivered a transcript of a November deposition in which Green Bay Chancellor Father John Doerfler detailed the destruction of documents on priests, beginning in 2007 - the same year the Wisconsin Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for victims to sue the church under the state's fraud statutes. "What they're doing is destroying evidence of child sex crimes. It's absolutely appalling," said John Pilmaier, SNAP's Midwest co-director, who took part in a news conference Tuesday outside the federal courthouse in Green Bay. The Green Bay Diocese issued a statement saying federal law keeps it from including psychological reports - which might contain information about inappropriate sexual behavior - in its personnel files. And diocese spokesman Ray DuBois said no files related to pending cases have been destroyed. James Santelle, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, said he had not yet seen the deposition but would meet with SNAP members to discuss their concerns. "This is an issue of considerable public interest, and therefore our doors are open," Santelle said. "I'm certainly interested and willing to meet with these folks . . . and make some determination about what if anything the . . . Department of Justice should be doing on this." Document policy Doerfler's deposition was taken as part of a Las Vegas lawsuit involving Father John Patrick Feeney, a former Green Bay-area priest serving a 15-year prison term for sexually assaulting two Wisconsin brothers. In the deposition, Doerfler said the destruction of documents was in keeping with a 2006 policy adopted by then-Bishop David Zubik. Beginning in 2007, he said, the diocese went into the files and destroyed all psychological reports, except those related to pending legislation, to comply with the 1996 Federal Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act. Documents, including confidential files, of deceased and laicized priests also were destroyed, although Doerfler could not say how many, according to the deposition. Church documents are the basis for a number of civil fraud cases now pending against dioceses in Wisconsin. Pilmaier, of SNAP, said destruction of files could hinder victims who have not yet filed lawsuits to bring their cases against the church and victims' families from learning the truth. "And what about priests laicized for sex abuse? If they assault a child, police will come looking for a past history, and it won't be there." Milwaukee Vice Chancellor Father James Connell, who has become a SNAP supporter, attended the Green Bay news conference and was critical of the diocese's policy there. "We're at a time where the Catholic Church is striving for ways to find justice in these cases, and truth is part of that," he said. The Milwaukee Archdiocese said it has a document retention policy that also allows the destruction of documents but that Chancellor Barbara Cusack has never allowed the destruction of documents related to clergy sex abuse.
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