MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Monday, June 9 2014
Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314-503-0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )
Three disturbing facts jump out from St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson’s deposition – taken last month but released today – in a clergy sex abuse and cover up case.
1) Carlson admits that he never called the police about known or suspected clergy sex crimes at any point in his 24 years as a priest, bishop and other top church official in Minnesota.
2) Carlson testified under oath that he wasn’t sure whether he knew it was illegal for priests to have sex with children when he served as chancellor of the Twin Cities archdiocese in the 1980s.
3) And another Catholic bishop testified under oath – in a different deposition – that Carlson advised him to claim memory loss if he were deposed in clergy sex abuse cases.
In a 1986 deposition, then-Winona Bishop Loras Watters said that Carlson told him “the best thing you can say (in depositions) is, ‘I don’t remember.'”
This is why Catholic officials fight so hard against victims in court and do all they can to prevent themselves from being deposed – because embarrassing truths surface through the justice process, truths that show many bishops are deeply complicit in horrific child sex crimes.
According to BishopAccountability.org, there are now 53 publicly accused child molesting Twin Cities clerics. And Carlson was in that archdiocese for almost 25 years. But not once did he call the police, he admits. Shame on him.
Finally, in a deceitful and self-pitying claim, Carlson blames therapists for decisions he made and other bishops made to quietly keep pedophile priests in parishes, saying “in many ways, we (bishops) were the victims of those we sent people to for treatment.”
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