MINNESOTA
Legal Reader
May 17, 2019
By Ryan J. Farrick
Three of the plaintiffs are brothers–and this is their third time suing the Holy See.
Five Minnesota men who claim to have been abused as children by Roman Catholic clergy are suing the Vatican, accusing it of concealing the identities of thousands of sex predator priests.
The lawsuit, filed by three brothers and two other men, was filed in the U.S. District Court in St. Paul. The complaint claims that the Vatican has files on at least 3,400 clergy accused of sexual abuse, including some high-ranking officials.
Reuters notes that the Roman Catholic Church has been embroiled in a global scandal regarding child sex abuse since 2002.
In the past several years alone, dioceses in New York and California—as well as other states and U.S. territories—have paid out billions to settle with victims of abuse.
According to Reuters’ recap, the three brothers claim to have been molested by former Minnesota priest Curtis Wehmeyer for over a half-decade, between 2006 and 2012.
Another plaintiff says they were molested by another priest, Thomas Adamson, in the early 1980s. The remaining man, states the suit, was assaulted by former California clergyman Fidencio Silva-Flores sometime between 1978 and 1984.
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