ST. LOUIS (MO)
National Catholic Reporter
[the entire deposition – via Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis]
Dennis Coday | Jun. 11, 2014 NCR Today
The Minnesota lawyer who released the deposition of St. Louis’ archbishop this week took the archbishop’s response to a question “out of context and suggested that the Archbishop did not know that it was a criminal offense for an adult to molest a child. Nothing could be further from the truth,” says in a statement the archdiocese released this morning.
“Recent inaccurate and misleading reporting by certain media outlets has impugned Archbishop Carlson’s good name and reputation,” the statement says.
A full reading of the deposition shows that Archbishop Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis was responding not to a general question about the sexual abuse of children but to a question about a specific point of Minnesota law — mandatory reporting laws — when he said, “I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not. I understand today it’s a crime.”
“In the deposition video, which was released by Plaintiff’s counsel, the dialogue between Plaintiff’s counsel and Archbishop Carlson focused on Archbishop Carlson’s knowledge of Minnesota child abuse reporting statutes and when clergy became mandatory reporters,” the archdiocesan statement says.
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