MINNESOTA
SDPB
[with audio]
Transcript
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now comes the kind of story George Polk would have pursued, sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. And indeed, several Boston newspapers won a Polk Award for their reporting on the subject back in 2003.
Recently, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis was rocked by revelations of abuse. A former official says church leaders covered up numerous cases of sexual misconduct by priests and even made special payments to known pedophiles, this in archdiocese that claimed to be a national leader in dealing with the issue.
In this encore broadcast, Madeleine Baran of Minnesota Public Radio brings us the story last week.
MADELEINE BARAN, BYLINE: To understand what’s happening now, it helps to go back to 2002, when the U.S. Catholic Church faced a crisis brought on by its failure to remove abusive priests from ministry. Archbishop Harry Flynn of St. Paul and Minneapolis emerged as a national leader on the issue, urging bishops at a now-historic conference in Dallas to root out what he called a cancer in the church.
ARCHBISHOP HARRY FLYNN ST. PAUL-MINNEAPOLIS ARCHDIOCESE: This is a defining moment for us this morning as bishops.
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