MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press
[With copy of Ms. Haselberger’s statement]
By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 10/05/2013
A former archdiocese official called upon Archbishop John Nienstedt to allow an external review of all clergy and remove priests who have engaged in sexual misconduct or pose a threat to children.
Jennifer Haselberger issued a written statement Saturday in response to press reports about what she termed “my unsuccessful efforts to convince the archdiocesan administration to take the necessary steps” to address sexual misconduct by priests.
Beginning in July, she released information to Minnesota Public Radio “regarding acts of sexual and other misconduct involving several members of the clergy…My hope was that by making this information public it would serve as a warning about predatory priests currently serving in the archdiocese,” Haselberger wrote.
Among those was Rev. Jonathan Shelley, 52, who served until June 2012 at St. John the Baptist Church in Hugo and currently has no assignment. A desktop computer owned by Shelley was found in 2004 to have thousands of pornographic images on it. Archdiocese officials did not report the case to the police. The St. Paul police got involved this year only after Haselberger told the Ramsey County attorney’s office about the computer.
The police closed their investigation on Sept. 29 after finding no child pornography on discs the archdiocese provided. But a Hugo man who had alerted the archdiocese to the computer in 2004 turned over a copy of portions of its hard drive to police on Friday.
Haselberger served until April 30 as chancellor for canonical affairs for the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. She resigned with “great sadness,” she said Saturday.
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