MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio
[with audio]
Tom Scheck St. Paul, Minn. Dec 29, 2013
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has forwarded information about two parish priests to law enforcement. The two priests in question are taking leaves from active ministry.
An outside firm found that the Rev. Joseph Gallatin and the Rev. Mark Wehmann were involved in incidents of “inappropriate conduct” with minors. The archdiocese didn’t say how the firm reached its decision. No information about the allegations has been released.
The archdiocese said it reported the information to police recently. An official with the archdiocese described the acts by both men as boundary violations that “do not constitute criminal activity or sexual abuse” but didn’t provide additional information.
Officials also didn’t say why no one removed the men from ministry sooner. Church leaders have claimed for years to have zero tolerance for any sexual abuse of minors. Any priest with a credible allegation of child sexual abuse is supposed to be removed from ministry right away.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.