MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio
Matt Sepic Collegeville, Minn.
Jan 19, 2016
St. John’s Abbey on Tuesday made public the personnel files of 18 monks it says have been credibly accused of sexually abusing minors decades ago.
The release of the papers is the result of a lawsuit settled last spring. The pages number in the thousands. They include everything from the monks’ birth and baptismal certificates to work assignments on the 2,700-acre campus.
There are also many personal letters and emails, as well as psychosexual assessments from doctors.
Attorney Jeff Anderson had already made documents public on nine of the monks. Abbot John Klassen says the release of the rest is the abbey’s latest step in reckoning with allegations of sex abuse.
“We look at this as a 30-year process of responding in a positive way to respond to survivors, secondly to make sure we hold offenders accountable, and thirdly to make sure that we’re living in a safe environment.”
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