MINNESOTA
Star Tribune
By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune MAY 9, 2017
Crookston Bishop Michael Hoeppner threatened to retaliate against a man who told him that a former top official in a Catholic diocese had sexually molested him as a child, according to a lawsuit filed in a Minnesota district court.
It marks the first time in the nation that an individual U.S. bishop has been directly accused in a clergy abuse lawsuit, said attorney Jeff Anderson, who is holding a news conference at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
The lawsuit also claims that the bishop failed to release the sex abuse allegation against the Rev. Roger Grundhaus as required by a 2015 court order.
“The coercion and concealment in real-time demonstrates the crisis continues, ” said Anderson. “This is another Catholic bishop who made a conscious choice to conceal a crime and then commit coercion to keep a secret.”
More than 500 claims of sex abuse by Minnesota clergy have been made in the past four years, most through a three-year law that allowed older civil cases to be filed. Catholic leaders across the state have stated that the abuse scandal is in the past, and that reforms have been made.
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