New plan to handle clergy sex abuse emerges in landmark case

By Madeleine Baran
Minnesota Public Radio
October 13, 2014

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/10/13/landmark-settlement-in-sex-abuse-case

Attorney Jeff Anderson Jeffrey Thompson

Attorneys connected to a landmark public nuisance lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona confirmed Monday that a settlement had been reached and that the case has been dismissed.

The settlement agreement will include a process for releasing the names of accused priests currently under seal.

Attorney Jeff Anderson this morning said Ramsey County Judge Van de North approved the settlement terms in a meeting this morning.

An attorney for the archdiocese said terms of the financial settlement will be confidential at the request of the victim.

Anderson is expected to speak in detail to the media at a 1 p.m. press conference.

Anderson has said generally that the agreement will require ongoing disclosure to his law firm and the public about abuse cases and that the agreement is more extensive than a deal reached years earlier with St. John's Abbey about its handling of clergy abuse claims.

Anderson had filed the suit in Ramsey County last year on behalf of a man who said he was sexually abused as a child by the Rev. Thomas Adamson in the late 1970s. Adamson, who served in the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Winona diocese, is no longer a priest.

The lawsuit accused the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Winona diocese of creating a public nuisance by keeping information on abusive priests secret. Anderson and his colleague Mike Finnegan argued in court that the secrecy placed children at risk of abuse from unknown offenders.

Those claims were bolstered by an MPR News investigation last fall that showed top church officials continued to protect priests accused of abuse.

One priest, the Rev. Clarence Vavra, had privately admitted to sexually abusing a child on an Indian reservation in South Dakota in the 1970s. MPR News found him living half a block from a school. In another case, Harry Walsh, a former priest who was accused of abusing two children, had been hired by Wright County to teach sex ed to at-risk teenagers.

Archbishop John Nienstedt and former Archbishop Harry Flynn did not notify police or the public about the allegations against Vavra and Walsh and kept other clerics in ministry despite allegations of sexual misconduct, according to documents obtained by MPR News.

Flynn and Nienstedt also gave special monthly payments to priests who had admitted to sexually assaulting children.

The lawsuit filed by Anderson led to the court-ordered disclosure in December of the names of priests flagged by church officials for "credible" allegations of child sex abuse.

The broad public nuisance claim also forced church officials to testify under oath and turn over decades of documents that showed a widespread cover-up of clergy sex abuse. Unlike a standard negligence case, the public nuisance argument allowed Anderson to obtain more than 50,000 pages from the files of every priest accused of abuse dating back decades — over the objections of a team of church lawyers who argued that the information was not relevant and could ruin the reputations of innocent men.

The documents include handwritten notes from high-ranking church officials, letters from victims demanding that church officials remove perpetrators from ministry, psychological evaluations of several priests and other documents dating from the 1970s to mid-2014.

Over the past several months, Anderson has released several of the files and has said he plans to release more in the coming weeks. However, as of last week, Anderson could only release files on so-called "credibly accused" priests.

The lawsuit was one of dozens of cases filed after state lawmakers passed the Child Victims Act in May 2013. The law eliminated the civil statute of limitations for new cases of child sex abuse. It also gave victims three years to file lawsuits for past abuse. The window for past cases expires in mid-2016.

Prior to the law's passage, victims had to file lawsuits before age 24. Since most victims don't come forward for years, the old law effectively shielded Catholic organizations from most clergy sex abuse litigation.

Over the past year, some parishioners have withheld donations out of fear that the money could be used for abuse lawsuits, and the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Winona diocese are considering filing for bankruptcy, according to documents and interviews with former high-ranking church officials.

However, both Catholic organizations have insurance that will likely cover a significant portion of financial settlements and attorneys' fees.

Prosecutors have not filed criminal charges against church officials for failing to report a suspected child sex abuse to police or social services providers, despite a state law that requires priests, teachers, medical professionals and others to report recent allegations of abuse.