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	SNAP Claims Video Proves Diocese Destroyed Priests' Records By Sarah Thomsen WBAY March 3, 2011 http://www.wbay.com/Global/story.asp?S=14176731 [with video] A motions hearing scheduled in Outagamie County court on Thursday moves a case involving the Green Bay Catholic Diocese one step closer to a jury trial. Todd and Troy Merryfield filed a civil suit in 2008 against the diocese saying the church covered up sexual assault allegations against Father John Patrick Feeney. In 2004, Feeney was convicted of molesting the Merryfields when they were boys in 1978. Ahead of Thursday's hearing, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) released documents it says support the brothers' allegations. SNAP says video of a deposition with Father John Doerfler, conducted by the Merryfields' attorney in November, shows the diocese knowingly destroyed records of priests accused of molesting children. SNAP provided Action 2 News with a DVD it obtained through open records. "So in 2007, there were files... Priests that had been accused of sexually molesting kids, that were destroyed?" an attorney asks in the video. "Same objection," another lawyer is heard saying. "They would have been priests who were deceased, and there were no pending claims, and documents were destroyed," Doerfler answers. Peter Isley of SNAP said, "I was stunned -- stunned! -- and as a victim of priest abuse as a child, sexually assaulted by a priest, devastated." The diocese would not comment directly on this allegation pending Thursday's court hearing but said it implemented a records retention policy in 2006 that instructed it to destroy records of priests who had been dead for more than a year -- unless there was pending litigation involving those priests. "It all occurred well before the January 2008 lawsuit that's been filed against us," the diocese's Deacon Tim Reilly said. "So to come today and say we've done all sorts of things because we were imagining we were going to be sued is just a little bit outrageous." SNAP and the diocese disagree whether all documents have been turned over to authorities. A judge will have the final say after Thursday's hearing.
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