MINNESOTA
Star Tribune
Article by: RICHARD MERYHEW , Star Tribune Updated: November 20, 2013
Al Michaud gives a voice to outrage with Catholic Church.
Al Michaud couldn’t believe the reaction.
He had just told the Rev. Kevin McDonough, the vicar general of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, that he’d been molested as a teen by a local Catholic priest. McDonough pulled out the priest’s file, Michaud recalled, and began to cry.
The Rev. Jerome Kern had allegedly groped and fondled at least two boys nearly a decade before he had molested Michaud in a pool at the St. Paul Seminary, and the archdiocese had a file on it. As a visibly shaken McDonough apologized, he told Michaud to give him a few weeks to take action on Kern, who was still in the ministry. “I thought I had an ally,” Michaud said.
But when Michaud called two weeks later, he remembers a completely different tone. He said McDonough acted as though he didn’t remember the conversation and told Michaud to pursue the case through other channels.
Michaud was stunned then. He’s even angrier now.
Two decades after that meeting and nearly 37 years after Kern sexually assaulted him, Michaud wants justice — and a face-to-face explanation.
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