Winona diocese releases priest abuse details
The Catholic Diocese of Winona has released new information on 14 priests it considers credibly accused of sexually abusing children.
Explore the full investigation Clergy abuse, cover-up and crisis in the Twin Cities Catholic church
Late last year, the diocese published the priests' names on its website in response to a court order. Monday's release contains additional information on those priests, including when the alleged abuse took place and when the church first learned of it.
The diocese's latest release also details how the church responded to the allegations, most of which took place decades ago. Many priests were referred to counseling and treatment programs. Few faced criminal investigations.
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• Related: Winona diocese names 14 priests accused of child sexual abuse (Dec. 16, 2013)
Most of the priests on the list are dead. The five still alive either have been removed from daily work as priests or are going through the process of laicization, which would officially remove them from the priesthood.
While almost every diocese in Minnesota has published a list of accused priests, Winona is the first to release summaries of the allegations against them.
Victims' attorney Jeff Anderson called the move "a step toward transparency, but far from full transparency."
Anderson's firm is in the process of reviewing about 70,000 pages of internal church documents it obtained from the Twin Cities and Winona dioceses as part of a lawsuit. Anderson said he intends to release all those documents once he's redacted identifying information about victims.
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis says it has no plans to release similar information on the priests it says have been credibly accused of abuse.
• Accused priests: Who they are, where they've served, what's alleged (Feb. 19, 2014)