Critics want Matt Flynn out of governor’s race for role in sex abuse litigation

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

May 23, 2018

By Marie Rohde

As former Milwaukee Archdiocese attorney, prominent Democrat had role in cover-up, critics say

Matt Flynn, a prominent Wisconsin Democrat running for governor, has come under attack by critics who say he participated in allowing abusive priests to continue in ministry and for aggressively pursuing legal fees against their victims who sued the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

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Flynn was the chief counsel handling sex abuse matters for the archdiocese from 1989 until 2004.

Flynn joined the archdiocesan team shortly after some abuse cases made headlines in the late 1980s. Several were settled in civil court before going to trial. But in 1992, eight former students of the St. Lawrence Seminary preparatory school told The Milwaukee Journal about widespread abuse at the school. Although the school is operated by the Capuchins, a number of priests from the order had served in archdiocesan parishes. One of those abused was Peter Isely, a therapist who went on to become one of the founders of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. SNAP kept the matter in the headlines across the country.

A number of lawsuits were in the courts in 1995 when the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed with Flynn’s arguments that the archdiocese was not responsible for the actions of its priests. That resulted in a number of cases being dismissed, even though the archdiocese had been earlier made aware of allegations and had not removed the priests from ministry.

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