MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2014
Statement by Verne Wagner of Duluth, Northeast MN (Duluth, MN & Superior, WI) SNAP director ( 218- 340-1277, lwagsmn@yahoo.com )
According to just-released church records, for almost 60 years, numerous Minnesota Catholic officials concealed the crimes of a predator priest who:
– was at a church retreat house in Nevis, Minn., that let him say weekend masses at nearby parishes even though center staff had been warning in writing that he had molested children, and
– was returned to ministry as a chaplain at a nursing home in 1969 in Ivanhoe in the New Ulm diocese. (This fact had not been reported previously.)
We urge New Ulm Bishop John M. LeVoir to aggressively seek out anyone who may have been sexually assaulted by Fr. Louis Heitzer.
A Twin Cities Catholic official, Fr. Kevin McDonough, wrote in 2002 that Fr. Heitzer was “‘perhaps the most abusive priest ever to be part of this Archdiocese’ abusing kids ‘every place he went.’”
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