CASPER (WY)
Casper Star-Tribune via Wyoming News Exchange
July 11, 2018
By Seth Klamann
In a statement read at all Catholic Masses on Sunday in Wyoming, the state’s highest clergyman apologized to victims of priest abuse and provided details to his statewide flock about the allegations facing one of his predecessors.
“The abuse crisis in the Church has been devastating,” Bishop Steven Biegler wrote in his letter, which was also placed in all bulletins Sunday. “As a Diocese, we have made a commitment to protect and heal: to protect the vulnerable from sexual abuse and to heal victims and their families.”
The statement came less than a week after the Diocese of Cheyenne announced that an independent investigation had concluded that former Bishop Joseph Hart had sexually abused two Wyoming boys. He first faced allegations here in 2002, the year after he retired. In an investigation that same year, the Natrona County District Attorney’s Office said that allegation had no merit.
The diocese became aware of Hart’s second alleged victim sometime after December 2017, when it hired a private investigator to look into the allegations. That investigator “acquired new substantial evidence,” according to the diocese’s statement. Last week, a church official declined to elaborate on what evidence that investigator had gathered.
Hart had previously faced allegations in Kansas City, Missouri, where he was a priest for 20 years before moving to Casper in 1976. He served for two years here before moving to Cheyenne — where he currently resides in retirement — and becoming bishop. Hart has denied all allegations, both in Missouri and Wyoming. He did so again last week.
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