Having Spent 7.5 Million Fighting Victims, Archbishop Listecki Appears to Be Reversing Course

SNAP Wisconsin
September 25, 2012

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Charles Dickens once wrote that the courts are where lawyers “spin masterly fictions” so judges can “waste their days reading mountains of costly nonsense.”

It is being reported today just how costly this nonsense has been for Catholics of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

The Archdiocese, which filed for bankruptcy in January of 2011, was ordered into mediation this summer with nearly 570 victim/survivors by Federal Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley. As Dickens might have predicted, Archbishop Listecki has spent an obscene 7.5 million dollars on lawyers and consultants, and not a dime on helping to heal or provide restitution to those harmed. And much of that money, all of it incidentally deriving from charitable contributions, has been used by the archdiocese to file and argue endless court motions and legal technicalities to throw out of court most of the 570 victim/survivors who have filed restitution claims. The archdiocese has also used those millions to prevent the release to the public of nearly 60,000 pages of secret church documents and depositions detailing decades of cover-up of child sex crimes by dozens of priests and employees of the archdiocese.

Ironically, when Archbishop Listecki went into bankruptcy court in January 2011 he claimed that the archdiocese had to file because it was unable to cover more than 4.5 million in mediating abuse claims, yet he has put that amount and 3 million dollars more into the pockets of lawyers in the last 22 months alone. And while Listecki has spent millions on lawyers he has so far only offered $300,000 dollars to victims and even that amount he wants to restrict to an alleged “therapy fund” to be controlled, of course, by the archdiocese.

Jerry Topczewski, Chief of Staff for Archbishop Listecki, however, has sent a clear signal today that the archdiocese appears to be surrendering its aggressive legal attack against victims, telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that “much progress” is being made in mediation. Attorneys for victim/survivors and the Creditors Committee will not comment, but it’s hard to believe that the archdiocese would jeopardize court confidentiality concerning statements surrounding mediation unless Archbishop Listecki was fully prepared to make a major announcement next week with attorneys for victim/survivors that a major breakthrough, if not a settlement, has been made.

On October 5, “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God,” the devastating new documentary by academy award winning filmmaker Alex Gibney will make its US premier at the Milwaukee Film Festival. The film features many of the brave victim/survivors whose lives were shattered as children by Fr. Lawrence Murphy, the serial predator priest, who assaulted, according to a secret church file obtained by the New York Times, at least 200 deaf children. Murphy’s crimes and those of dozens of other priests from the Milwaukee Archdiocese were covered up by church officials here and in Rome, including the current Pope.

Deaf survivors of Fr. Murphy will be among the many victims that will be expecting Archbishop Listecki to make a major settlement announcement prior to the premier of this important film.

Unless of course today’s comments by Topczewski and the archdiocese are another irresponsible and misleading statement designed to misdirect victim/survivors and the public in order to buy some public relations time. Let’s hope not.

If the Archdiocese does indeed announce a settlement next week Catholics should fully expect, and are entitled to receive, an explanation from their archbishop as to why 7.5 million dollars has been spent in a needless attempt to delay some measure of justice for victim/survivors in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Archbishop Jerome Listecki has yet to explain to the Catholic community why he has distinguished himself as the first United States bishop to aggressively seek to throw out of court fully legitimate claims of sexual assault survivors, even in cases where the archdiocese has acknowledged a child was sexually attacked. In addition to fighting victims and their families Listecki has spent millions of hard earned donations in an attempt to conceal the archdiocese’s criminal past. Catholics have every right to ask what secrets are worth 7.5 million dollars to protect.

Whatever the outcome is next week children in our community are safer today because of the courage of the 570 brave individuals who came forward to hold the archdiocese of Milwaukee accountable for their decades long cover up of child sex crimes.

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 12,000 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. Our national website is SNAPnetwork.org. The local Wisconsin website is SNAPwisconsin.com.