APPLETON (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin
Statement by Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director
CONTACT: 414.429.7259
It took a jury today in Appleton, Wisconsin barely four hours to conclude in a landmark decision that the bishops and senior managers of the diocese of Green Bay had committed fraud in concealing and transferring serial child sex predator, Fr. John Patrick Feeney. What is so significant about this decision is that the jury reached its conclusion even though the judge had severely limited the amount of evidence, including hundreds of pages of internal church files, that they could examine. If the jury had seen the totality of Feeney’s file they would likely have reached their decision in even less time.
This is the first trial against a diocese for sexually abusive clerics in state history. A pair of controversial state supreme court decisions in the mid 1990’s fully immunized the church from any and all corporate liability for priest child molesters based on a controversial interpretation of the first amendment. It is a testament, therefore, to the courage and persistence of Todd and Troy Merryfield and their families who have doggedly pursued justice through a much more daunting path of filing their claim under the state’s fraud statutes.
How today’s decision is going to impact other dioceses in the state—including the 570 cases filed in federal bankruptcy court in Milwaukee, many of those cases for fraud—is yet to be seen. But this much the jury in Appleton has made clear today: Society cannot afford—children cannot afford–to have an institution, no matter how laudatory its other accomplishments–that is accountable to no one.
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