MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio
Sasha Aslanian St. Paul, Minn. Apr 2, 2014
Archbishop John Nienstedt today abruptly ended a session in which he testified under oath about his handling of clergy sexual abuse allegations in St. Paul and Minneapolis, an attorney suing the church said.
The four-hour deposition of Nienstedt ended heatedly after attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents a man who says he was sexually abused by the Rev. Thomas Adamson in the 1970s, asked the archbishop to turn over files of offending priests to law enforcement.
“The archbishop balked, and refused and as we urged him to consider doing that because it’s the only safe thing for the community to do, to turn it over to police, the deposition was terminated by the other side and they walked out,” Anderson said.
It was the first time Nienstedt has had to answer questions under oath regarding the sexual abuse of children by priests in the archdiocese since he became archbishop six years ago. Church lawyers tried for months to block the deposition on the grounds it is not relevant to the case. But Ramsey County Judge John Van de North and the Minnesota Court of Appeals disagreed.
Van de North also ordered the archdiocese to turn over thousands of documents about accused priests to lawyers representing the man who filed suit against the church.
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