Wisconsin Catholic leaders vow openness on abusive priests, as victims call for probe
It was in the “spirit of accountability,” according to Father Dane Radecki, that St. Norbert Abbey released the latest list of Wisconsin Catholic priests who sexually assaulted children.
The Norbertines disclosed last month that 22 priests had molested youths over the past six decades, an admission intended to help victims heal, wrote Radecki, abbot of the De Pere community, in a letter to “friends of the Abbey.”
“As we move forward, we hope to be transparent and honest about the failings that have occurred through members of our Abbey,” he wrote.
The news put the religious order among a host of Catholic institutions across the country hoping to move forward from a scandal that has dragged on in the public eye for years. In Wisconsin, more than 130 priests who served in the state have been identified as credibly accused of sexual assault.
That number doesn’t include at least 20 others who have been accused and named on the clergy abuse monitoring website BishopAccountability.org, which pulls together not only substantiated claims of abuse, but also reports from the media.
Catholic leaders in Wisconsin emphasize that today’s church is different; that most of the abuse is from decades ago. Churches now conduct background checks on all officials who interact with children regularly, and they are more knowledgeable in how to recognize abuse and abusers. Bishops say they’re sharing whatever allegations they determine are credible.
Nevertheless, the list of known abusive priests in Wisconsin is likely to continue growing. The Madison, La Crosse and Superior dioceses have yet to offer a full accounting; all three say they are conducting an internal review of allegations or hiring outside investigators, or both.
Those investigations fail to assuage abuse survivors. They no longer trust the church. To them, the list released by the Norbertines, along with earlier disclosures from the Green Bay and Milwaukee dioceses, fell short of a full accounting of misconduct.
They want law enforcement to step in.
“It’s pretty much the same thing that they’ve been doing all these years,” said a 51-year-old Merrill resident who is among multiple men sexually assaulted as boys by a Northwoods priest. USA TODAY NETWORKWisconsin withholds names of sexual assault survivors unless they agree to be identified.
His abuser, Thomas Ericksen, wasn’t criminally charged until last November, more than three decades after the Superior Catholic diocese became aware of allegations against the priest. Ericksen reached a plea agreement in June, and will be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison Friday.
A crisis that keeps spreading
Reports of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy percolated in different parts of the country through the 1980s and ‘90s. The issue blew wide open nearly 20 years ago when an investigation by The Boston Globe revealed that hundreds of priests in the Archdiocese of Boston had molested children, and then were transferred from parish to parish instead of turned over to police.
Abuse of minors by clergy has since been confirmed around the world, including in deeply Catholic countries like Ireland and the Philippines. This month, priests went on trial in Argentina — the pope’s home country — accused of repeatedly assaulting deaf children.
In the United States, a grand jury in Pennsylvania last year exposed the cover-up of allegations that more than 300 priests abused at least 1,000 children. The Pennsylvania report reignited the discussion over clergy abuse nationwide at a time when Catholics in the United States thought they could finally catch their breath.
Then, in February, the Vatican removed Cardinal Theodore McCarrick from public ministry amid credible allegations that he molested minors and engaged in sex with young seminarians for years. Particularly infuriating to Catholics, McCarrick’s behavior was alleged to have been widely known in the church hierarchy.
In May, the pope issued a universal church law making it mandatory for all Catholic leaders to report cases of clerical sex abuse — including those committed by bishops and cardinals, a key provision.
Today, at least 14 attorneys general have launched investigations into dioceses in their states — and they are beginning to lead to criminal charges. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has so far not committed to a criminal investigation .
What we know in Wisconsin, so far
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee became the first in Wisconsin to face a reckoning over clergy abuse. The Archdiocese has identified 48 known abusers, first releasing its list in 2004, but attorneys for victims say more than 100 others are named in bankruptcy records still under seal.
The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in January 2011 after it was unable to reach a mediated settlement with victims, and after a court decision absolved insurance companies of liability. It finally reached a $21 million settlement with 330 victims in August 2015.
The only other Wisconsin diocese to reveal findings of an internal investigation has been the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay. The diocese this year released the names of 48 priests accused of abuse, 15 of whom are still alive.
Green Bay’s disclosure came after years of criticism . Former Bishop David Zubik, who led the Green Bay diocese from 2003 to 2007, released a report in 2004 that said 35 priests and deacons had been accused of abuse between 1950 and 2003. He refused to release their names and, two years later, directed the diocese to destroy personnel records of priests who had been dead for at least a year.
Priests from some, but not all, religious orders unaffiliated with dioceses have been disclosed, too.
The Jesuit order’s USA Midwest province last year released the names of priests and brothers with credible allegations against them, including nine who served in Wisconsin, most of them in Milwaukee or Prairie du Chien.
Most of the 22 St. Norbert Abbey priests who are known to have abused minors are dead. One of the surviving priests on the list was previously convicted of assaulting a boy in a hot tub in the 1980s.
That priest, James Stein, is one of only 19 priests statewide who have faced criminal charges for their sexual misconduct, a USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin analysis found.
Other dioceses begin to investigate
Following Green Bay’s disclosure, Wisconsin’s remaining dioceses have committed to launching their own investigations into clergy abuse.
The Diocese of Madison announced on June 12 that an independent firm had been hired to review clergy personnel files and investigate abuse allegations.The process is expected to “unfold in the coming months,” a news release said, and any findings will be turned over to diocesan investigators, the diocesan Sexual Abuse Board and police.
In 2003, Madison named five priests found by the diocese to be credibly accused. The June statement identified two more priests accused of abuse and separately referenced the ongoing case of William Nolan, who is charged in Jefferson County with second-degree sexual assault of a child.
In Superior, Bishop James Powers is conducting an internal review of personnel records to determine if former and current clergy members were abusive, said Dan Blank, director of administrative services for the diocese.
The Superior diocese also is considering hiring an outside firm to conduct a separate review. After the reviews are completed, the diocese will likely disclose the findings, Blank said.
The La Crosse diocese is reviewing its files and expects to complete the process in the “near future,” at which point there will be a public disclosure, said spokesman Jack Felsheim in an email to USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.
‘Much harder to move forward’
Victims, their advocates and independent researchers contend it’s important for police and prosecutors to lead the charge in holding clergy accountable, because diocesan investigations can be murky and incomplete.
For example, dioceses refer to “substantiated allegations” in their disclosures, but don’t adequately explain what that means, said Christine Bartholomew, a law professor at the University of Buffalo who has researched clergy privilege.
Asked to define a substantiated allegation, a spokeswoman for the Green Bay diocese referred to its website. The site describes an allegation as substantiated “when, based upon the facts and circumstances of the case, there is a reasonable cause to suspect that the sexual abuse of a minor has occurred.”
“This is comprised, in part, of the certainty of the accuser that the abuse took place, that the allegations (are) internally consistent regarding a time, place and date, and that other facts surrounding the accuser’s claims appear to be accurate,” the website says.
Bartholomew believes there’s a role for the church to investigate if it chooses, but dioceses must do so in a way that’s transparent and not driven by self-interest.
Following Green Bay’s disclosure, Green Bay Police Chief Andrew Smith encouraged people to report child sexual abuse by clergy to the police department instead of the diocese.
“Isn’t there a strong incentive for them (Catholic leaders) to not be completely upfront and honest?” said Smith, a practicing Catholic.
Wisconsin law has limitations
Those who do attempt to prosecute clergy in Wisconsin face myriad challenges.
“The problem has been that with these crimes, most survivors don’t tell right away and they’re not capable of telling right away, until they’re older,” said Mike Finnegan, an attorney with Jeff Anderson & Associates, a Minnesota-based law firm that has taken on numerous cases involving clergy abuse. “And the statute of limitations, the laws that are in place, generally have prevented law enforcement from putting these offenders behind bars.”
Wisconsin has gradually extended the statute of limitations for criminal charges in child sexual assault cases. However, the changes applied only to new crimes, meaning survivors of past abuse couldn’t pursue charges if they had missed the old deadline. There is no limit for first-degree sexual assault of a child, but survivors of other sexual abuse crimes must report the abuse before they turn 45.
Some survivors seek remedies through civil court. Those who want to sue their abuser or his diocese must do so before they turn 35.
Some state legislators want to change that. Sen. Lena Taylor,who says she was sexually assaulted as a child, is joining other lawmakers in again advocating legislation that would remove the limit for civil action. She says there shouldn’t be a deadline for recalling and summoning the courage to share a childhood trauma.
Taylor and other lawmakers also unveiled a measure this month that would require clergy to report sexual and physical abuse, regardless of how they became aware of it. Wisconsin currently allows clergy to keep allegations private if they learn of them through confidential communications or in a confessional setting and religious tenets require them to keep those statements secret.
Both bills have yet to be formally introduced . However, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, church officials have argued vigorously against extending statutes of limitation, in part because of the likely exposure to more lawsuits.
As part of a demand for greater accountability, survivors in Wisconsin are calling for Kaul investigate the dioceses.
During a June interview in Oshkosh, Kaul acknowledged that “truly awful” crimes have been committed by clergy in Wisconsin but declined to say whether his office is exploring its own review.
Kaul said dioceses should disclose any information they have available and it should be reviewed by someone outside the church.
“I think in any context, when you have an outside, third-party, neutral investigator coming in to do an investigation, that’s going to be appropriately viewed as more credible,” he said.
Officials with four of the state’s five dioceses told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin they would cooperate with an attorney general investigation, should one occur, but the Archdiocese of Milwaukee was unenthusiastic. Spokeswoman Amy Grau said in an email that Milwaukee’s clergy files have been examined multiple times by outside reviewers, and many are published on the archdiocese’s website.
“It is unclear what further information could be garnered from a timely and expensive review of files yet again,” she said.
Survivors are unlikely to be persuaded.
The victim in Merrill said he first reported Ericksen to leaders of the Superior diocese, following their exact process. He said he received no sense of justice .
“I wanted to give them the chance to right their wrong, but in my opinion that didn’t happen,” he said. “It just fell short.”
The man said that after he gives his victim impact statement at Ericksen’s sentencing Friday, it will be the end to a long and painful period of his life. But for other victims who haven’t yet seen justice, he said, the Catholic church needs to do more.
“If (the church) wants transparency, they need to turn over everything, every scrap of paper,” he said.