MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press
By John Lundy
Forum News Service
POSTED: 11/05/2015
DULUTH, Minn. — A priest who was accused of molesting a choirboy during a European tour in 1990 has been exonerated in a third-party investigation, according to the abbot of his monastery.
But an advocate for victims of sexual abuse by priests isn’t satisfied.
“Their third-party investigator was paid to find exactly what they were looking for,” said Verne Wagner, the northern Minnesota director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
“We’ve seen this in many instances, and it is not credible.”
The allegations against the Rev. Timothy Backous, who was placed on leave from positions with Essentia Health and St. Michael’s parish in Duluth in June 2014 after they resurfaced, “were not supported by evidence,” said Abbot John Klassen of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., in a statement released Thursday.
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