Release of Sex Abuse Depositions and Records Would Not Identify Victims

By John Pilmaier
SNAP Wisconsin
March 30, 2012

http://03409bc.netsolhost.com/snapwisconsin/2012/03/30/release-of-sex-abuse-depositions-and-records-would-not-identify-victims/


Archbishop Listecki, in an interview on WITI channel 6 yesterday, misleadingly stated that the unsealing of abuse depositions and documents of church officials in Federal bankruptcy court–a request being made in a motion filed by over 300 victim/survivors and to be argued in court next Thursday–would somehow result in the identities of victims being made public, presumably by Judge Kelley in a court order. That, Listecki says, is why the Archdiocese will oppose the motion. This statement by Listecki is absolutely false. Archdiocesan spokespersons, when opposing court release of documents in the past, have made these deceptive public inferences, but the Archbishop himself has never crossed the line and personally repeated them. Until now.

The motion filed in court by victim/survivors could not be any clearer. It states: “The motion seeks to have all information regarding survivors’ identities redacted and all information regarding alleged abusers who have not yet been publically identified redacted as well.” This motion was filed publically so it is available to anyone. One would guess that Listecki, who is a lawyer, and the 28 lawyers he has hired for the bankruptcy, have read it.

The names and identities of victims are redacted or removed from documents and depositions before any public court release. Church bankruptcies, including the most recent from the Wilmington Diocese, resulted in the release of tens of thousands of pages of church documents with all victim names and identities first removed. This has been true in every church bankruptcy filing and document release around the United States. And, in every court ordered release to date of documents from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee itself–such as those concerning the notorious priest sex offenders Frs. Lawrence Murphy, Siegfried Widera, and Franklyn Becker–every single victim name or identity was removed by the court before the release.

It is utterly unacceptable for Listecki to mislead the public on this point and alarm and frighten victims by propagating it. What’s worse, Listecki made these false claims on the very day he was supposed to be offering “atonement” for the sins of clergy child sex abuse. In fact, Listecki wasn’t even out of the church doors at yesterday’s “Mass of Atonement” when he said it.

Hundreds of victims through their legal representatives will be asking Federal Judge Susan V. Kelly next week to make a fully redacted release of the recent depositions of Listecki’s predecessors, Archbishop Rembert Weakland and Bishop Richard Sklba.

This is what victim/survivors and their families want: they want to know which bishops and senior managers from the Archdiocese covered up child sex crimes, and transferred and concealed known child molesters into schools and parishes.

[Link to SNAP’s Release on yesterday’s “Mass of Atonement”]

[Link to SNAP’s letter to Archbishop Jerome Listecki on the release of court depositions]