Milwaukee Church Bankruptcy, Sex Abuse Featured in Frontline Documentary

By Annysa Johnson
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
February 24, 2014

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/246931891.html

Local victims of clergy sexual abuse and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy are featured in a Frontline documentary that will be broadcast at 8 p.m. Tuesday on local PBS station Channel 10.

“Secrets of the Vatican,” recounts the transition from the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI and “illuminates the extraordinary challenges facing Pope Francis as he tries to reform the powerful Vatican bureaucracy, root out corruption, and chart a new course for the troubled Catholic Church and its 1.2 billion followers,” according to the Frontline web site.

The film explores a number of issues, including the global sex abuse crisis, Francis’ efforts to reform the Vatican bank and bureaucracy; and the Vatileaks scandal that resulted in the theft conviction of Benedict’s butler.

The film features interviews with Milwaukee-area sex abuse survivors Peter Isely, who was molested by a Capuchin priest at St. Lawrence Seminary in Fond du Lac County and Monica Barrett, who was raped by the late Father William Effinger. Both would be excluded from the archdiocese’s compensation for victims under its proposed reorganization plan.

The film takes a critical view of the Milwaukee church’s decision to move $57 million earmarked for the perpetual care of cemeteries into a newly created trust to protect it from legal liability. Frontline filmmakers did not interview officials with the Milwaukee archdiocese. But they said they attempted unsuccessfully to reach Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who won Vatican approval to protect the cemetery frunds in 2007 when he was Archbishop of Milwaukee; and retired Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who oversaw the handling of the sex abuse crisis in Milwaukee for three decades.