Sartell Man Brings Sex-abuse Lawsuit to St. Cloud Diocese

By Alex Svejkovsky
WJON
January 2, 2014

http://wjon.com/sartell-man-brings-sex-abuse-lawsuit-to-st-cloud-diocese-audio/

[with audio]

Robert Ethen (center) along with Attorney’s Mike Bryant (left) and Jeff Anderson (right) have filed a sex-abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of St. Cloud. (PHOTO: Alex Svejkovsky, WJON News)

A Sartell man who says he was sexually abused by a priest in the mid-1960s is filing a lawsuit against the Diocese of St. Cloud.

In 1993, Robert Ethen told attorneys he was abused by Father James A. Thoennes and is filing the lawsuit against the diocese so that no child has to go through what he did.

Ethen says he tried to talk to Bishop Donald Kettler personally to see if he was going to release the names just as other diocese around the state.

In 2003, the Diocese of St. Cloud admitted there were 26 priests who worked in the Diocese who had been accused of sexually molesting minors.

Attorney Jeff Anderson says it’s time to release the names of the credibly accused priests of the St. Cloud diocese and to stop keeping secrets.

Similar lists have already been released by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Winona and Duluth with pending suits in Crookston and New Ulm.

Anderson says this is an invitation for Kettler to do the right thing.

Ethen filed the lawsuit on Tuesday.