MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter
Tom Roberts | Aug. 1, 2014
The call reporter Madeleine Baran took from a former employee of the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese in June last year was the first step she and her colleagues at Minnesota Public Radio would take down a long and complex trail into another ugly chapter of the clergy sex abuse scandal.
“That was an unusual call to get because people within the chancery do not normally come forward to divulge secrets publicly,” Baran said in a recent interview. “Right away, I knew that this was a unique situation, and right away my editors agreed with that.”
The caller was Jennifer Haselberger, a canon lawyer who, in her work as chancellor of canonical affairs for the archdiocese, had found among its records and archives unreported allegations of clergy sex abuse and lapses in internal investigations. Unable to convince Archbishop John Nienstedt to take the lapses seriously, she had resigned her position in April 2013.
Three months later, she called Baran at Minnesota Public Radio and began telling what she knew. MPR News assembled a team that started an investigation of the details and broadcast its first story in September. The archdiocesan façade began to crumble quickly. As the MPR website states in an introduction to its latest online venture: “The vicar general resigned within days. Police launched criminal investigations. Catholics held protests, and Nienstedt canceled his public appearances.”
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