MINNESOTA
Star Tribune
Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: June 4, 2014
Former Archbishop Flynn does not recall details of clergy abuse during his 13 year tenure.
Retired Twin Cities Archbishop Harry Flynn did not report any charges of clergy sex abuse to police during his 13 year tenure, according to a court deposition made public Wednesday.
Flynn did not recall the details of how the archdiocese handled abuse cases. But he did recall that the archdiocese made special payments to priests who had been credibly accused of abusing children.
“I felt very strongly that they would not be able to get jobs very easily, and so I wanted to give them some help,” he said.
Flynn said he couldn’t remember how many priests received the special payments, adding “I couldn’t take a guess.”
Flynn’s deposition is the latest deposition of a high-ranking church official to be made public, joining those by Archbishop John Nienstedt and former vicar generals Peter Laird and Kevin McDonough.
They come in response to a lawsuit filed in 2013 on behalf of a man who claimed he had been abused decades earlier by the Rev. Thomas Adamson, who later was removed from ministry. It contends that church officials in the Twin Cities and Winona put children and others at risk of abuse by failing to disclose information about priests accused of abuse.
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