UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register
BY BRIAN FRAGA 06/19/2015
MINNEAPOLIS — The missing piece in the Church’s response to the clergy sexual-abuse crisis, many have argued, has been accountability for bishops who mishandled, covered up or ignored cases of priests who preyed on minors and young people.
But that could be changing, as evidenced by several recent developments that include Pope Francis’ June 10 approval of a new Vatican tribunal to adjudicate cases of negligent bishops — and, most prominently, the June 15 resignations of Archbishop John Nienstedt and Auxiliary Bishop Lee Anthony Piche in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, which on June 5 was criminally charged as a corporation for allegedly failing to protect minors.
In a June 15 statement on the archdiocesan website, the outgoing archbishop said, “In order to give the archdiocese a new beginning amidst the many challenges we face, I have submitted my resignation as archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis to our Holy Father, Pope Francis, and I have just received word that he has accepted it.”
In closing, he said, “I leave with a clear conscience, knowing that my team and I have put in place solid protocols to ensure the protection of minors and vulnerable adults.”
The same day the Minnesota bishops resigned, the Holy See announced that its former ambassador to the Dominican Republic, the laicized archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, will stand trial this July in Vatican City on charges that he sexually abused boys and possessed child pornography while he served in the Caribbean (see story on page 5).
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.