APPLETON (WI)
Press-Gazette
Written by
Jessie Van Berkel
Gannett Wisconsin Media
APPLETON — Several priests who served in the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay during the Rev. John Feeney’s tenure testified Tuesday that allegations of sexual misconduct followed Feeney in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Troy and Todd Merryfield, two brothers who were sexually assaulted by Feeney in 1978 and are suing the diocese, called the priests as their first witnesses in the two-week trial at Outagamie County Circuit Court in Appleton.
The brothers filed the lawsuit in 2008, claiming the diocese and Bishop Aloysius Wycislo — who was bishop from 1968 to 1983 and is deceased — fraudulently kept parishioners in the dark about Feeney’s history of sexual molestation that led to the boys’ abuse.
Troy’s attorney, John Peterson, said evidence shows Feeney was a “known risk” to children when Wycislo placed Feeney at St. Nicholas Parish.
But the diocese’s attorney, Patrick Brennan, said risk is not enough. He said the Merryfields must prove the bishop knew Feeney was molesting others before their assaults occurred and fraudulently covered it up — and there isn’t evidence to back up that “outlandish claim.”
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