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	Bishop Zubik Denies Trashing Records By Jill King Greenwood Pittsburgh Tribune-Review December 23, 2010 http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_715045.html [letter to the U.S. Attorney's office] [statement from the Green Bay diocese] [Fr. John Doerfler deposition] Pittsburgh Bishop David A. Zubik on Wednesday said he worked to make sure church laws in Green Bay, Wis., specifically forbid the destruction of records detailing pedophilia and other forms of sexual abuse by priests. Zubik said he was shocked by news that a victims' advocacy group this week called for a federal investigation into claims that he destroyed such records when he served as bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay before being transferred to Pittsburgh in 2007. "I was stunned because my time of leadership in the church is based on building up the credibility of the church," Zubik said. "I would never destroy anything, and I would always protect anyone who was abused." Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) cited a deposition given in November by a high-ranking Catholic Diocese of Green Bay official in calling on U.S. Attorney James Santelle to investigate Zubik and Green Bay Bishop David L. Ricken. Peter Isely, SNAP's Midwest director, said at a Tuesday news conference outside the federal courthouse in Green Bay that his group wants Santelle to order the diocese there to stop destroying records and look into possible criminal charges. Yesterday, Isely said Zubik "created a policy which allowed him to order others to destroy documents," including records of priests' crimes; psychological records of all priests; and records on priests who had been banned from priesthood. "(Zubik) is just confirming there was a deliberate, intentional decision he made to destroy a very specific set of information and evidence, and that's what's so alarming about this," Isely said. Santelle has agreed to meet with SNAP after Jan. 1 but has not seen the deposition, his spokesman said. After an auditors' report said the Green Bay diocese had "nothing specific ... to address the protection of records and documents," Zubik said he made it clear no documents could be destroyed until a year after the death of a priest, and only then if there was no pending litigation against him. "That was the practice before, but I had it put into writing," Zubik said. He said he has not yet talked to the U.S. attorney. Zubik said he believes SNAP's allegations center mostly on the case of John Feeney, 83, who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for abusing several children, including a victim identified only as John Doe 119, during the 1970s. Zubik said he spoke to John Doe 119's family many times, calling them "very compassionate people," and that as far as he knows, the diocese turned over all records the district attorney in Green Bay requested "intact."
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