MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio
by Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio
November 21, 2013
MOORHEAD, Minn. — A lawsuit filed Thursday against the Catholic diocese of Crookston, Minn., and a Catholic missionary organization alleges sexual abuse of children by a priest.
The Rev. James Vincent Fitzgerald was transferred to the White Earth Reservation in 1984 and soon after abused an eight- or nine-year-old boy, according to the lawsuit. Fitzgerald died in 2009.
The defendants knew about a pattern of abuse and failed to stop it, attorney Jeff Anderson said. “We’re really seeking a public disclosure and revelation of secrets that have long been kept and hoping to get the Catholic bishops in all the dioceses in Minnesota to come clean and become both transparent and do outreach,” he said.
There are allegations of sexual abuse against Fitzgerald dating to the 1960s, Anderson added.
The lawsuit was filed against the Catholic Diocese of Crookston and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Catholic missionary organization. Its missionaries began working on Minnesota American Indian reservations in 1923 and continue today, according to the order’s website.
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