MINNESOTA
Bemidji Pioneer
[Porter laicization letter to the pope]
[Original laicization to the pope]
JUSTIN GLAWE
BEMIDJI PIONEER
BEMIDJI — As Jim Grimm stood on the sidewalk in front of St. Philip’s Catholic School Monday, two silent and unmoving faces stared back in photo form.
One, a young girl with a gap-toothed grin, neatly cut brunette hair and a red and white polka dot dress, and the second, an elderly man with glasses and a tan sweater.
The man was Rev. James Porter, a priest who molested Grimm and at least 20 other boys — then students at the school — in 1969-70. The girl, now a woman in her 50s living in the Bemidji area, is “Jane Doe 4,” who filed a lawsuit against Porter’s former employer, the Diocese of Crookston, Monday.
Jeff Anderson, an attorney who represented Grimm in the first round of lawsuits against the diocese 21 years ago, has been filing lawsuits on behalf of victims thanks to the Child Victims Act, signed into law by Gov. Mark Dayton in May.
Anderson represents Jane Doe 4.
“They have a legal and moral obligation” to release internal files on priests suspected of abuse, Anderson said of the Diocese of Crookston.
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