MINNESOTA
Winona Daily News
By Jerome Christenson | jchristenson@winonadailynews.com
A suit seeking at least $50,000 in damages and release of a list of priests “credibly accused” of molesting children was filed Wednesday against the Diocese of Winona, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and Thomas Adamson, a former priest in both.
The suit, filed in Ramsey County District Court, was brought on behalf of a 51-year-old anonymous plaintiff. The plaintiff claims that between 1976 and 1977 “Adamson engaged in unpermitted sexual contact” with the plaintiff while he was assigned to St. Thomas Aquinas parish in St. Paul Park.
The plaintiff’s lawyer, Jeff Anderson, announced the suit at a news conference Wednesday in St. Paul, where he said the suit seeks to rectify “the repeated abuse and sordid saga of cover-up by both dioceses of the abuse by Thomas Adamson.”
“The suit seeks something much more than accountability and a day in court,” he said in a recording of the conference posted online, adding that it hopes to require the diocese and archdiocese to “come clean and come forth with the lists of credibly accused offenders that they have and continue to hold secret.”
The Diocese of Winona declined to comment Wednesday but released a three-paragraph statement that said that it “is committed to the protection of children and the safe environment of our parishes and schools,” and that it “works vigorously and has taken extraordinary measures to ensure that all of the schools, parishes and programs administered in the Diocese” adhere to the Church’s Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
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