MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio
Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Jul 9, 2014
Attorney Jeff Anderson on Wednesday released more clergy documents from a massive lawsuit that has forced the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to turn over more than 60,000 internal documents on priests accused of sexually abusing children.
The documents released today involve the Rev. Joseph Wajda, who was accused of sexually abusing children decades earlier. The archdiocese removed Wajda from parish assignments in 1991 and the Vatican decided to kick him out of the priesthood last year.
The allegations against Wajda are already well known. Then-Archbishop Harry Flynn named Wajda in 2002 as a priest accused of sexual abuse, and the claims received extensive media coverage.
Wajda, 67, has denied the abuse claims and said he has appealed his case to the Vatican.
The documents are part of a lawsuit that alleges the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona created a public nuisance by keeping information on abusive priests secret. The man who filed the suit claims he was sexually abused by the Rev. Thomas Adamson in the 1970s.
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