MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times
Written by
David Unze
ST. PAUL — A civil lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses a former St. John’s Abbey priest of sexually abusing a child at a Hastings parish where he was assigned after his superiors knew he had sexually abused a boy in Cold Spring.
The Rev. Francis “Fran” Hoefgen admitted in March 1984 that he had sexually abused a boy in the St. Boniface parish residence in Cold Spring. Hoefgen was sent to St. Luke Institute in Maryland for evaluation and treatment and never was charged criminally in Stearns County.
Officials in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis then assigned Hoefgen to a parish in Hastings, where he sexually abused another boy from 1989 to 1992, according to the lawsuit. The victim in the Hastings abuse was 10-13 at the time and is suing Hoefgen, St. John’s Abbey, St. Luke Institute and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Hoefgen’s superiors were aware of his record of abuse when they assigned him to Hastings, said attorney Jeff Anderson, who filed the lawsuit. But they did nothing to tell anyone in Hastings about it.
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