Archbishop’s Attorney Says Release of Audio Clips from Deposition Was Selective, by Fred Bodimer, CBS St. Louis, June 12, 2014

Archbishop’s Attorney Says Release of Audio Clips from Deposition Was Selective

By Fred Bodimer
CBS St. Louis
June 12, 2014

http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/06/12/archbishops-attorney-says-release-of-audio-clips-from-deposition-was-selective/

The Most Reverend Robert Carlson wipes his forehead as he battles the 90 degree heat during the Procession of Bishops before becoming the ninth Roman Catholic Archbishop of St. Louis at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis in St. Louis on June 10, 2009. St. Louis will be Carlson’s fourth diocese; he most recently served as the bishop of Saginaw, Mich. (Photo: UPI Photo/Bill Greenblatt)

The Most Reverend Robert Carlson wipes his forehead as he battles the 90 degree heat during the Procession of Bishops before becoming the ninth Roman Catholic Archbishop of St. Louis at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis in St. Louis on June 10, 2009. St. Louis will be Carlson’s fourth diocese; he most recently served as the bishop of Saginaw, Mich. (Photo: UPI Photo/Bill Greenblatt)

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - A spirited defense from the attorney representing St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson in his deposition on how he handled a clergy abuse case in Minnesota in the early 1980s.

Carlson has drawn criticism for saying that he wasn’t aware at that time that it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child.

“I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Carlson said in the deposition. “I understand today it’s a crime.”

Comments like this, says the Archbishop’s attorney Charles Goldberg, have been taken totally out of context.

“I think it’s apparent if you read the deposition exactly what the context of the questions and answers were,” he says.

So what was the context?

“It’s related to when mandatory reporting laws went into effect for clergy,” Goldberg says.

The selective release of audio clips from the deposition, Goldberg tells KMOX’s Mark Reardon, is nothing more than a ploy by the plaintiff’s attorney to sway public opinion against the Church.

“You have to look at things in context,” he says. “I know there are those in the press that might want to pick this up and blast it out of context, but that’s not appropriate.”

He says Archbishop Carlson, as far back as 1980 when he was still a priest, wrote against clergy abuse saying this behavior cannot be tolerated.

“That is the man that we’re talking about here today,” Goldberg says.

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