MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press
Elizabeth Mohr
emohr@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 12/18/2015
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has agreed to implement new child-protection procedures as part of a settlement agreement with the Ramsey County attorney’s office, which filed a civil suit against the church in June.
The archdiocese will immediately begin implementing “practices, procedures — action … to do everything we can to protect children,” attorney Joe Dixon, who represents the archdiocese, told the court Friday.
The civil case was filed at the same time the county attorney’s office filed criminal charges against the archdiocese, accusing top-ranking officials of failing to protect children and parishioners from sexually abusive clergy.
At the time, the county attorney’s office said the civil petition against the archdiocese was “intended to seek legal remedies to prevent the archdiocese from allowing this behavior (from) ever happening again,” according to a statement.
As part of the agreement, the civil case will be put on hold for three years as the archdiocese implements its plan, coming back to the court with progress reports every six months. At the end of the three-year period, if the archdiocese has held up its end of the deal, the county attorney’s office will dismiss its case.
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