Green Bay Bishop David Ricken Named As Defendent in Federal Lawsuit

SNAP Wisconsin
March 20, 2012

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According to reports Green Bay Bishop David Ricken has been named as a defendant in a federal civil lawsuit filed by a woman who states that a deacon at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Casper Wyoming had a physically and sexually abusive relationship with her. The lawsuit also names the Diocese of Cheyenne, two priests, and Bishop Joseph Hart.

Bishop Ricken was appointed bishop of Cheyenne in 2000 and remained in Wyoming until 2008 when Pope Benedict XVI appointed him as bishop of Green Bay. The woman who filed the lawsuit, Kathy Seeley, states that she was referred to Deacon Don Stewart in 2002 for grief counseling. Seeley reports that Stewart’s “vicious physical assaults and physical sexual relationship” caused emotional and physical damage.

The Diocese of Cheyenne contends that the First Amendment prohibits such a lawsuit from moving forward, arguing that it would involve the court in the internal personnel policies of the church. Seeley’s attorneys argue that church officials “knew or should have known of this inappropriate and meretricious sexual relationship imposed upon plaintiff by defendant Stewart in the course and scope of his employment”.

This is not the first time that bishops and church officials have attempted to shield themselves from responsibility for sexually abusive employees by hiding behind the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Most states have rejected this argument, but unfortunately courts in Missouri, Wisconsin, and Utah have upheld the idea that to involve themselves in the personnel matters of a church, even when those personnel have sexually assaulted children, would interfere with the church’s constitutionally protected religious freedom.

The New York Times called this a “bizarre conclusion (which) would grant churches special exemption from neutral, generally applicable laws designed to protect children.”

Church lawyers in Cheyenne have said that “it would be unconstitutional for a civil court to pass judgment on the Catholic Church’s hiring or retention of a deacon, who like a priest, is a member of the Catholic clergy and part of the church’s hierarchy”.

Surely children and vulnerable adults also have a right to religious liberty, which would permit them to worship God in the place of their choosing free from the threat of being physically or sexually assaulted by a member of the clergy.