MINNESOTA
Star Tribune
Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: October 5, 2013
Archbishop John Nienstedt kept a relatively low profile on clergy sexual abuse until last week. Now he finds himself overseeing an archdiocese scrambling to react to charges of a pornography coverup inside his chancery.
Nienstedt’s top deputy resigned abruptly Thursday in response to an allegation that he covered up evidence of child pornography on a laptop owned by a Hugo priest.
The accusation came from attorney Jennifer Haselberger, a former high-ranking lay official within the archdiocese. And it followed her earlier accusation that the archdiocese overlooked for nearly a decade the sexual compulsions of another priest — Curtis Wehmeyer of St. Paul — and did not warn parishioners. Wehmeyer is now in prison, convicted of sexually abusing two boys.
Haselberger declined requests for comment last week, but on Saturday she issued a blunt challenge to Nienstedt.
She said in a statement that she resigned as chancellor for canonical affairs in April because church leaders’ refusal to act on her allegations made it “impossible for me to continue in that position given my personal ethics, religious convictions and sense of integrity.’’
Haselberger called for Nienstedt to order a comprehensive external review of the clergy and that he make public the names of all those who have engaged in acts of sexual misconduct or could reasonably be assumed to pose a threat to children.
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