WALTHAM (MA)
BishopAccountability.org
Statement by Terence McKiernan
December 5, 2013
We welcome the release of this highly significant list – the first church list to be released by order of the court.
We’re grateful to Jim Keenan (John Doe 73C) and John Doe 1, and to their attorney Jeffrey Anderson, who saw that their cases could help make children safe, and could help other survivors to heal. Their visionary work has transformed the cold numbers of a 2004 press release into the human story of abuse in St. Paul and Minneapolis – and soon Winona as well. Names can do what numbers never can.
We’re also grateful to Archbishop Nienstedt for his belated conversion to the cause of transparency. He clearly chose wisely in posting the entire list, including the so-called unsubstantiated claims (not a correct term for two or three of the four). As Cardinal Keeler wrote when he released the Baltimore list more than a decade ago, “Telling the truth cannot be wrong.”
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