Diocese of Green Bay Found Guilty in Child Sex Assault Case

By Peter Isely
SNAP Wisconsin
November 1, 2012

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For the first time today, the Diocese of Green Bay has been held accountable in a civil court of law for their decades long practice of concealing and transferring priest child sex offenders.

In a verdict today by a Las Vegas jury, the diocese was found guilty of negligence in transferring notorious child sex predator John Patrick Feeney to a Nevada parish where he sexually assaulted the plaintiff when he was 13 years old. The jury ordered the diocese to provide $500,000 in

damages to the victim/survivor in the case.

The Green Bay diocese goes on trial in May in Wisconsin for Feeney’s crimes while Feeney was still a priest of the diocese and before his transfer to Las Vegas.

The Diocese of Green Bay has a long standing practice of attempting to evade responsibility for the crimes of their sex offending clerics. Fr. Feeney is just one of 51 clerics that Green Bay church officials have received reports of sexual assault or misconduct on over the past few decades. The diocese has refused repeated pleas from victims and their families to publically identify the names

and locations of their sex offending clergy leaving additional children at risk.

The brave victim in this case, John Doe 119, is to be commended for holding the Green Bay Diocese accountable for concealing and facilitating decades of child sex crimes. Children in Nevada and Wisconsin are safer today because of his courage.

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.