MINNESOTA
Star Tribune
Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: April 28, 2015
St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville will make public its files on 19 priests with credible charges of sex abuse, as part of a settlement reached with a man who sued the abbey for abuse he suffered as a teenager.
The documents are expected to reveal how the abbey addressed reports of sex abuse perpetrated by its monks over the past decades. The provision is similar to one in the first lawsuit settled against Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, requiring that priest personnel vaults be opened.
The lawsuit was filed by a man who was abused by the Rev. Allen Tarlton in 1977, when he was a student at St. John’s Preparatory School and Tarlton was his English teacher. It charged that the abbey was aware of previous sexual improprieties by Tarleton, yet allowed him to continue to teach at the school. The abbey did not notify parents or police.
Tarlton, who had a significant history of psychiatric treatment, went on to abuse again, the lawsuit charged. Yet he was not put on restrictions on campus until 2002.
The settlement comes a week before the case was scheduled for trial in Stearns County.
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