MINNESITA
KSTP
By: Jennie Olson
Secret documents have been made public Wednesday that attorneys say show how a former official with the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis mishandled child sexual abuse allegations against former priest Joseph Wajda.
The documents were released as part of a civil lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, the Diocese of Winona, and former priest Thomas Adamson.
The documents fault Archbishop of St. Louis Robert Carlson, who previously served as a chancellor and auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis from the 1970s to 1990s.
The documents say Carlson and other church officials mishandled and minimized allegations against former priest and accused child molester Wajda, which allowed Wajda to continue to serve as a priest.
According to the documents, Wajda allegedly began abusing children a month after his ordination in 1973. The allegations say church officials, including Carlson, learned in 1981 that Wajda was molesting boys under the guise of counseling but waited five years before sending him to psychiatric care.
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