MINNESOTA
Minnesota Lawyer
By: Mike Mosedale September 9, 2015 0
Priest convicted of abuse wants to buy Archdiocese HQ
MPR’s Madeleine Baran reports on a bizarre twist in the clergy abuse scandal/bankruptcy at the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis: a priest who was convicted of child sex abuse wants to buy the archdiocese’s 60,000 square foot chancery headquarters so he can turn it into “a healing center for abuse survivors.”
According to the story, the Rev. Gilbert Gustafson, who served six months in jail after pleading guilty to sexually abusing a boy in White Bear Lake in 1983, says he “feels called by God to minister to victims of abuse and that buying the chancery and converting it to a center that aids abuse victims is part of his ministry.”
“I get it. I’ve caused harm, and I engaged in behavior that is reprehensible, but I am not a monster,” Gustafson tells Baran. “It goes back to that line. I am not a monster. I have done monstrous things, but I am not a monster.”
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