MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota
Esme Murphy
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — There are new allegations that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis destroyed as many as five suspected child porn videos — and that the Vatican knew what happened.
This latest allegation involving the Twin Cities Catholic Church comes as a direct result of a landmark agreement between the church and victims.
The agreement has resulted in more names of priests, suspected of sexual abuse against a minor, being released.
One of the new names released by the archdiocese is 77-year-old Father Don Dummer. In 1997, when Dummer was working at St. Mary’s Church in St. Paul, a part-time employee said he found VHS tapes in Dummer’s room at a St. Paul home.
One of those videos was of 10- to 12-year-old boys playing basketball in the nude. The co-worker turned the videos over to then-Vicar General Kevin McDonough. Attorney Mike Finnegan said the co-worker waited to see what McDonough would do.
“He waited and waited and heard nothing from the vicar general, so he called McDonough again, he asked if he had checked it out and McDonough said, ‘Yes,’ and that he had destroyed the videos,” Finnegan said.
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