MILWAUKEE (WI)
Women’s March WI
October 16, 2018
Earlier today Women’s March Wisconsin State Co-Chair, Sarah Pearson, and former Midwest Director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, Peter Isely, hand-delivered a letter calling for a statewide investigation of clergy sex abuse crimes to Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel. The letter demands a full-scale investigation of the 60,000 court-ordered publicly available documents which detail alleged abuse by 48 Catholic priests of the Milwaukee Archdiocese. At least one hundred allegedly abusive clergy have never been publicly identified, and their documents remain sealed. The Milwaukee Archdiocese is one of five Wisconsin dioceses the groups want Schimel to review.
In his response (which was recorded), Schimel said that retired Milwaukee Bishop Richard Sklba who characterized returning sex offenders back into ministry as an “experiment” made a “mistake.” Attorney General Schimel should know that secretly using Catholic children as test subjects and parishes as laboratories for child molesters is a crime, not a mistake.
Since Pennsylvania’s groundbreaking Grand Jury report that found over 300 priests guilty of sexually assaulting over 1,000 victims, thirteen attorneys general, including six Republicans, have opened investigations into the Catholic dioceses within their respective states.
In last Sunday’s debate with Democratic candidate, Josh Kaul, moderator Mike Gousha asked Schimel if he would be open to investigating the Wisconsin dioceses for alleged cover-up of clergy sex crimes. Schimel stated he does not “indict by headline,” saying he would not destroy people’s lives without evidence.
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