MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press
By Elizabeth Mohr
emohr@pioneerpress.com
A closer look at claims filed against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis as part of its bankruptcy proceedings shows requests from former employees, outcast priests, business associates and the whistleblower whose disclosures sped the church’s unraveling.
Monday marked the last day to file claims against the archdiocese, including clergy sex abuse claims, and they flooded in as the day came to a close.
Among the claims filed:
— The IRS filed a claim for $115,024 for taxes going back to 2011.
— Retired priest Stanley Kozlak wants to keep his $1,216 monthly pay, medical insurance and $1,550 in “subsistence pay” that was part of a 2002 payoff after he fathered a child.
— The Rev. Mark Huberty, who was charged but acquitted of sexual misconduct for having an affair with a woman, is asking the archdiocese to cover $46,000 in legal fees for his criminal case. Criminal and civil cases have been filed against other priests and bishops, Huberty said in his claim affidavit, “and it is widely known that their legal expenses have been paid for by the archdiocese.”
— The Rev. John Bussmann, who was convicted of criminal sexual conduct involving an adult woman and later convicted of theft, claims he is owed more than $680,000 in back pay and material support for the more than 20 years he’s been unassigned.
He said the archdiocese this year offered to pay him $10,000 to leave the priesthood, but he rejected it because he “considers his vocation a valid calling from Almighty God, and he cannot in conscience ‘sell’ his priesthood for any amount of money,” his claim said.
He did not specify who made the $10,000 offer. Former Archbishop John Nienstedt resigned in June. The Vatican named Archbishop Bernard Hebda of Newark, N.J., apostolic administrator for the St. Paul archdiocese — a caretaker role until Pope Francis names a new archbishop.
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