MINNESOTA
Religion News Service – Spiritual Politics
Mark Silk | Oct 17, 2014
Because everybody in the Catholic news world has been focused on that amazing synod in Rome, this week’s settlement of an abuse case in the Twin Cities has largely sailed under the radar. It shouldn’t have.
Negotiated between premier abuse victim lawyer Jeff Anderson and officials of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the settlement establishes 17 child protection protocols that ought to be adopted throughout the United States, if not the world. Most important is Protocol 17, which reads as follows:
When the Archdiocese receives a report of child sexual abuse and makes a mandated report to law enforcement pursuant to Minnesota statutes, the Archdiocese shall not conduct an internal investigation and will not interfere in any way with law enforcement until law enforcement concludes its investigation, closes its file without an investigation, or authorizes the Archdiocese to proceed with its investigation.
Time and again, when dioceses have failed to handle an abuse case properly in recent years, it’s been because their internal investigation failed to result in law enforcement being informed when a possible abuser was brought to their attention.
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