St. Louis Archbishop Rozanski accused of covering up clergy sex abuse at previous post

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Post-Dispatch

February 10, 2021

By Jesse Bogan

https://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/st-louis-archbishop-rozanski-accused-of-covering-up-clergy-sex-abuse-at-previous-post/article_540d3a53-e0a1-5479-8666-d174fdcd8113.html

A civil lawsuit filed in Springfield, Massachusetts, alleges St. Louis Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski was part of “abhorrent attempts” to protect the reputation of a now disgraced Roman Catholic bishop while at his previous post in the northeast.

The plaintiff, named John Doe in court records, had already claimed that the late Springfield Bishop Christopher J. Weldon sexually abused him in the 1960s when he was an altar boy. Now he alleges he was also harmed by the alleged cover-up of the abuse decades later when he first started reporting it to the diocese in late 2014.

In part, Rozanski, who served as bishop in Springfield from 2014 to 2020, is accused of approving an official statement to the press denying that the Diocesan Review Board found a credible allegation of abuse against Weldon when that statement was “patently false,” according to the Jan. 28 lawsuit, reported Tuesday by The Berkshire Eagle newspaper.

Though the lawsuit specifically names Rozanski as one of the defendants, his spokesman told the Post-Dispatch on Tuesday by email: “The Archdiocese of St. Louis does not respond to inquiries regarding pending litigation against another diocese.”

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