Boy, what a fucking mess, this catholic church...
SNAP: Arrested priest was on Dells watch list
From SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) Wisconsin Co-Director John Pilmaier
The police investigation last year and the official banning of Fr. Patrick Umberger from the state’s largest children and family oriented recreational parks raises yet more disturbing questions concerning the senior management of the diocese of La Crosse child sex abuse policy. These questions have been raised for months now, in the media, by victim’s organizations, by law enforcement and most recently by one of the highest ranking priests of Wisconsin.
The La Crosse diocese under Bishop Jerome Listecki, according to statistics compiled by a massive national study by the John Jay College for Criminal Justice, showed that the La Crosse diocese cleared more potentially dangerous clerics who may have committed child sex abuse than anywhere in the United States. How many possible offending clerics were cleared? An astonishing sixty percent of abuse allegations were deemed not credible by the LaCrosse diocese. In light of the recent allegations that Fr. Umberger, a priest of the LaCrosse diocese, was in possession of child pornography, and had previously followed boys into public restrooms, it appears that Fr. Connell’s warnings were indeed prophetic. Rather than heed Fr. Connell’s concerns the diocese dismissed them outright.
Indeed, when Fr James Connell, vice chancellor of the archdiocese of Milwaukee, a member of the archdiocese lay review board for abuse complaints, and a canon lawyer raised concerns last month, the administrator of the diocese of La Crosse, Fr. Richard Gilles shot back that Fr. Connell was “careless and insulting.”
And then there is the La Crosse priest Listecki and his corporate attorney, James Birnbaum, did not report for assaulting a woman parishioner last year and who was is now facing trial.
Although the La Crosse diocese has a lay review board to review these cases, attorney Birnbaum told Wisconsin Public Radio in June that the “independent” review board, of which he is conveniently a member, keeps no records of their meetings.
Listecki has repeatedly indicated that as bishop of La Crosse he did not personally review the records of abuse complaints or how they had been processed. So, presumably, if Umberger had been reported before this week by someone to the diocese, Listecki can say this week that, to the best of his knowledge, there are no previous complaints on Umberger.
Constructing a maze of “deniability” for the top man—replete with canon law firewalls and non-note taking review boards—is not an acceptable child abuse prevention policy.
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AZGrizfan - Summer 2008
I want to personally thank the managment at Noah's Ark Waterpark in the Wisconsin Dells for being more proactive than the Vatican by placing him on their "Watch List" and taking away his season pass.
