Archbishop Listecki Quietly Adds Another Perpetrator to the Official List of Clergy Child Sex Offenders

SNAP Wiscosin
November 30, 2012

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Archbishop Jerome Listecki quietly placed the name of Fr. Donald Musinski on the Milwaukee Archdiocese’s official listing of clergy sex offenders. Musinski who was given his first parish assignment in 1962 worked in parishes throughout southeastern Wisconsin for almost 40 years and passed away in 2006.

The Archdiocese was warned about Fr. Musinski’s criminal behavior years ago when Karen Konter bravely came forward to report the sexual assaults she had endured from the age of seven until the time she was thirteen years old as a parishioner at St. Adalbert’s in Milwaukee. It’s unknown how many victims of Musinksi have come forward over the years to the Archdiocese but given the pathology and extent of Musinksi’s sexual crimes, the age of the victim and the years of criminal acts against her, its highly likely that Musinski may have harmed many children.

Despite Konter’s report of sexual assault the Archdiocese refused to publically identify Fr. Musinski as a sex offender. Only now, as the Archdiocese is about to enter its second year of federal bankruptcy proceedings has Listecki decided, in the least public manner, to let Catholics of the archdiocese know that there has been yet another child sex offender in their parishes and schools for almost 40 years. Which raises the troubling question, are there additional members of the clergy who have harmed children that are not accounted for on the official listing of offenders from the Archdiocese?

Almost one year ago in Federal Bankruptcy Court it was reported that in a review of 350 claims filed by victim/survivors of clergy sexual abuse, out of almost 600 which were submitted to the court, at least 8,000 acts of sexual abuse had been committed against the claimants and up to 100 sex offenders, 70 of whom are priests, had not been identified by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee as offenders on their official list of clergy who have been restricted from ministry due to child sexual abuse.

Ten months later Listecki has updated his list of clergy sex offenders by updating it with the name of just one cleric, Fr. Donald Musinski, years after Karen Konter first reported his criminal behavior to the Archdiocese, which raises a tidal wave of disturbing questions: What is the status of the investigation of the at least 70 other alleged child molesting clerics? Who are these individuals and where are they if alive? Who is supervising them? Are they being investigated? How are these investigations being conducted? Who is conducting these investigations?

Instead of expending resources to keep children safe and properly inform the public of criminal acts by clerics, Listecki has instead decided to use church charitable money to pay a slew of bankruptcy lawyers–at rate of over $11,74.07 per day for a grand total now nearing 8 million dollars–to fight victim claims, keep nearly 60,000 pages of church files concerning sex abusers secret, and block the release of the depositions of the key figures, all of them bishops of course, in the sex crimes and financial cover up in the Milwaukee Archdiocese.

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 23 years and have more than 10,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Visit us at SNAPnetwork.org and SNAPwisconsin.com.