MINNESOTA
LaCrosse Tribune
Jerome Christenson jerome.christenson@lee.net
A former priest who has admitted to having sex with more than 10 boys still draws a monthly check from the Diocese of Winona.
According to an agreement outlined in a letter signed Oct. 9, 2008, by Winona Bishop Bernard Harrington, Thomas Adamson will draw the annual pension agreed upon for senior priests under the Diocese Priests Pension Plan along with medical and dental coverage “the remainder of your life.”
Six months later, Pope Benedict XVI granted Adamson “dispensation from all the obligations connected to sacred ordination,” formally removing him from the Roman Catholic priesthood more than 45 years after he admitted sexually abusing boys to Bishop Edward Fitzgerald.
Adamson’s ongoing financial relationship with the diocese was revealed in a sworn May 16 deposition Adamson provided as part of a suit brought against the Diocese of Winona and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis by an anonymous plaintiff who claims he was sexually abused by Adamson in the 1970s. The lawsuit is the first filed after the Minnesota Legislature opened a three-year window in 2013 that set aside the statute of limitations in cases of abuse.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.