MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter
Brian Roewe | Jan. 22, 2016
St. John’s Abbey, one of the largest Benedictine monasteries in the U.S., released more than 15,000 pages of documents Tuesday related to 18 priests it said “likely offended” sexually against minors dating back to the 1960s.
The disclosure comes as the latest chapter in the jagged history for the Benedictine community in Collegeville, Minn., on the issue of clergy sexual abuse, one that at times has seen it attempt to lead in understanding the epidemic but at others fall ill to the plague of its horrors. Like many others before them, the disclosed documents provide a recounting of what the abbey knew when regarding each monk — nearly half of whom have died — and often the attempts to shuttle them from place to place to avoid possible lawsuits and scandal.
In an accompanying statement on the disclosure website, MNtransparencyinitiative.com, the Abbey stressed that no incident of sexual abuse of a minor by one of its monks has occurred in more than two decades.
“The release of the files is an acknowledgement of the harm that has been done. … We in the monastic community grieve the pain and suffering of those who have been harmed, whose lives have been diminished by the pain they suffered,” said Benedictine Fr. John Klassen, abbot of St. John’s Abbey, in a statement.
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