MINNESOTA
St. Paul Area Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
[Archdiocese led lobby to stop abuse law change – Star Tribune]
November 5, 2013
Dear Partners in Ministry:
Today’s Star Tribune carried an article about the Minnesota Religious Council and the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, in which it identified the six ELCA synods in Minnesota as members of the Minnesota Religious Council (MRC). The article described the MRC’s lobbying effort against recent legislation that changed the statute of limitations on claims of child sexual abuse. Tony Kennedy, the reporter, spoke with me last week, and I sought to provide accurate information about our involvement.
I think it could be helpful for me to provide you with some perspective so that you are better able to interpret these matters to parishioners and others and to remind you of how we in the ELCA view and respond to matters of misconduct.
I will focus on three arenas: the Minnesota Religious Council; the concerns we had about the proposed legislation; and how the ELCA responds to misconduct and abuse issues.
The Minnesota Religious Council
While records are sketchy and the origin of the MRC pre-dates me and the current ELCA bishops, it is my understanding that the MRC was originally formed when leadership of several church bodies came together in the early 1990s to discuss the concern of sexual abuse and clergy misconduct and how church bodies can properly respond to and seek to prevent such misconduct. The initial group included Roman Catholics, Lutherans (both ELCA and LC-MS), Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, and maybe others. Later, faced with lobbying by attorneys and others hoping to change state laws, the MRC became a forum for discussing and responding to proposed legislation aimed at the statutes of limitations for bringing suit against perpetrators and institutions. (See next section.)
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.