MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press
By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
A Ramsey County judge has given the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona an additional month to disclose the names of priests who have been accused of sexually abusing children since 2004.
Those names were to be disclosed by Monday; the new deadline is Feb. 5.
At the same time, Judge John Van de North took church officials to task for failing to report previous cases of abuse to police and for recently using terminology like “boundary issues” to describe certain priests’ behavior.
“I don’t think anybody knows what that means,” Van de North said. “One person’s boundary violation is another person’s sexual abuse.”
The Archdiocese used the term in reference to allegations against two priests who were suspended Sunday: Rev. Joseph Gallatin of the Church of St. Peter in Mendota and Rev. Mark Wehmann of St. Boniface Catholic Church in Minneapolis.
Attorneys for the archdiocese and diocese, as well as plaintiff’s attorney Jeff Anderson, appeared in court Friday to discuss the judge’s Dec. 3 order regarding priests accused of abuse.
A list of “credibly accused” archdiocese priests compiled by 2004 was released Dec. 5. The Winona diocese released its 2004 list Dec. 16. The judge set Monday for disclosure of priests accused since then.
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