MINNESOTA
Courthouse News Service
By ROSE BOUBOUSHIAN
(CN) – A man who says he used to give financial advice to Catholic organizations claims in court that the church defamed him by spreading a psychic’s claims about him.
Michael Schaefer and his Dakota County, Minn.-based business, MPSCHAEFER, brought the complaint on April 21 against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis; Catholic Finance Corp.; Mater Dei High School; the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange; and that diocese’s revocable trust.
Schaefer claims that the Minnesota archdiocese hired him in April 2000 while it was in the process of creating a financial-advisory firm for Catholic organizations.
The diocese ultimately tapped Schaeffer to serve as executive director of that entity, Catholic Finance Corp., according to the complaint in Dakota County District Court.
In that capacity Schaefer says he “completed approximately $600 million in financing for Catholic organizations,” working directly or indirectly “in seven different dioceses with over 200 parishes and schools.”
Schaefer allegedly opened his own firm in 2011, and that the Diocese of Orange contracted him to act as its finance director on an interim-to-permanent basis in late 2013.
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