Abuse and Internal Politics in the Archdiocese of St. Louis

ST. LOUIS (MO)
KLJY - NewsTalk STL [St. Louis MO]

August 27, 2024

By Jamie Allman

[In this 16-minute video of a broadcast on a St. Louis talk radio station, Jamie Allman describes his experience at the headquarters of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, where he worked as communications director during a brief 2004-2005 sabbatical from his career in radio.

Allman describes the internal politics among allies of Cardinal Rigali when now-Cardinal Burke succeeded Rigali as archbishop, and he goes public about two documents relating to Fr. Robert F. Johnston, who was recently named in a lawsuit. When Allman was working at the archdiocese, Johnston had admitted sodomizing a young boy, and Allman discovered that an internal document to which he had access showed that Johnston had worked at many more parishes than the archdiocese had publicly disclosed.

Allman then saw another document in which then-Msgr. Richard F. Stika, now the disgraced former Bishop of Knoxville, had directed that Johnston’s salary be increased from $1,000 to $1,600 per month, despite Johnston’s recent admission that he had abused a child.

Allman presents himself as a Catholic and someone who admired then-Archbishop Burke, but he believes that the behavior of St. Louis archdiocesan officials regarding clergy abuse needs to be known.]

https://ooo.mmhmm.app/watch/z_T00twRunmhqxCk9scbVw