BishopAccountability.org

Superior, La Crosse dioceses plan to review files for abusive clergy

By Laura Schulte
Wausau Daily Herald
January 28, 2019

https://bit.ly/2CRBCKw

St. Peter's Catholic Church in Winter, Wisconsin on Nov. 19, 2018.
Photo by Laura Schulte

Former Catholic priest Thomas Ericksen looks back on the gallery during a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, December 12, 2018, at the Sawyer County courthouse in Hayward, Wis. Ericksen is accused of sexually assaulting three children between June 1982 and April 1983.
Photo by Tork Mason

[with video]

At least two more Catholic dioceses in Wisconsin plan to open their archives in search of abusive clergy members throughout their history. 

Representatives for the Diocese of Superior and the Diocese of La Crosse both said their organizations will review their files, following the release by the Diocese of Green Bay last week of a list of 46 priests who had sexually abused minors.

Neither Superior nor La Crosse provided a date that any list would be finished or made public.

Dan Blank, director of administrative services for the Diocese of Superior, said Bishop James Powers has conferred with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee for advice on how to conduct an investigation of clergy abuse.

However, results of the investigation wouldn't be available for months, Blank said, because the diocese will have to go back to the beginning of its 114-year history to check for names. 

"We'd start with priests that are alive and then go further back," he said.

The Superior diocese would also likely cooperate with a state Department of Justice investigation, Blank said, if Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul decides to order such a probe.

The diocese would release relevant documents if there is a state investigation, Blank said.

"We're taking the approach that facts are facts," he said. 

The Diocese of Superior is also cooperating with investigators in Sawyer County who are reviewing multiple sexual assault allegations against former priest Thomas Ericksen, Blank said. The diocese turned over relevant files last week, he said, and helped one of Ericksen's victims make contact with police. 

Jack Felsheim, spokesman for the Diocese of La Crosse, said last week that the diocese is reviewing files and hopes to complete that step soon. The diocese has not yet decided if it would publicly disclose the findings, Felsheim wrote in an email to USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.

Superior, La Crosse and Green Bay are among five Catholic dioceses operating in Wisconsin.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has said through a spokesman it is "committed to transparency in its ongoing response to clergy sexual abuse of minors," but is not offering any new information or conducting additional reviews in light of the Green Bay disclosure. The diocese previously released a list of known offenders in 2004.

The Diocese of Madison is not conducting its own review but is interviewing independent firms for a potential review of files, spokesman Brent King said. The process was delayed when Bishop Robert Morlino died unexpectedly in November, King said. He also noted that although the Diocese of Madison doesn't maintain a list of abusive clergy on its website, an investigation could change that. 

"As we have seen there has been a trend in the past few months of several dioceses and religious communities across the country to undergo similar investigations and to release information to the public, even if the information has been released previously, albeit not in the aggregate," King wrote in a Wednesday email. "In my opinion, this has been done for different reasons, whether it be because they are legitimately under new scrutiny, want and/or need to rebuild broken trust, or to reaffirm ongoing transparency with victims, the community, and the faithful in the pews."

Dioceses across the country are combing through their files and releasing public lists of known offenders in response a call for greater accountability and transparency from the Catholic Church. The issue has taken on new urgency since July, when Pennsylvania's attorney general released a grand jury report that identified more than 300 "predator priests" who abused more than 1,000 victims across the state.

Similar investigations have been launched in more than a dozen states, and church officials have been notified by a federal prosecutor that they are not to destroy certain documents. 

Peter Isley is an abuse survivor and founding member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. He hopes for a larger, statewide investigation in Wisconsin because he doesn't trust the Catholic dioceses to be fully transparent in investigating themselves.

"It's a massive conflict of interest," Isley said of the diocese-conducted reviews.

Kaul, who won election in November and became Wisconsin's new attorney general in early January, has not said whether he will launch an investigation. His office told the Wisconsin State Journal on Saturday that it would not comment on the request by SNAP, “given this relates to a potential investigation.”

Kaul has not responded to requests for comment from USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.

Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisolm also called on Kaul to launch a statewide investigation.

Isely said he hopes a Wisconsin state review would be more in-depth and produce a more complete list of names of abusive clergy. Diocese officials often release only a small portion of the available information, he said.

He said making public all the information in cases of abuse is a matter of public safety and it shows victims that coming forward made a difference. 

"It's important that survivors are validated," he said.




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