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LA CROSSE, Wis. (WSAU) - The web master for the Diocese of La Crosse is accused of possessing child pornography, but the investigation of the Reverend Patrick Umberger started much earlier.

He had lost his season pass to Noah's Ark Water Park when he was accused of following young boys into a bathroom last summer. An attorney for the church calls the report an "unsubstantiated allegation." The diocese placed no restrictions on the priest after it learned of the allegations.

In addition to losing his pass, he was also placed on a watch list at the water park. According to a state investigation, Umberger denied intentionally following the boys and was quoted as saying he has prostate problems which cause him to need to urinate often.

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.

andy7171 wrote:Man, these are the slow days of the summer. Cap'n can't find his funny. D1B can't jump start a Catholic hate thread. These are the doldrums just before the season starts.

JoltinJoe wrote:Yea, lock this guy up.

Amazing, though, that this story is so easy to find on the internet; and yet I can't find a single news story reporting on the John Jay report for 2008-2009, which found that there were just six credible allegations of abuse against over 40,000 Catholic priests during the years 2008 and 2009. Guys like this guy are the exception among Catholic priests in the US these days, and a very rare exception. I was heartened to see how much progress has been made in protecting children from predatory priests by the US Catholic Church.

D1B wrote:

JoltinJoe wrote:Yea, lock this guy up.

Amazing, though, that this story is so easy to find on the internet; and yet I can't find a single news story reporting on the John Jay report for 2008-2009, which found that there were just six credible allegations of abuse against over 40,000 Catholic priests during the years 2008 and 2009. Guys like this guy are the exception among Catholic priests in the US these days, and a very rare exception. I was heartened to see how much progress has been made in protecting children from predatory priests by the US Catholic Church.

Yet, you wouldn't let your son outta your sight for a millisecond around one of em.

JoltinJoe wrote:

D1B wrote:
Yet, you wouldn't let your son outta your sight for a millisecond around one of em.

A large part of the progress has been because bad priests have been weeded out. But also parents have been doing their part in being more careful too. So I'll continue to do my part (and not just around priests, too).

The days when parents would send kids on camping trips with the priests, etc., are long gone. The overwhelming majority of these trips were simply camping trips, but bad priests also used them as cover for their predatory proclivities. You just can't take that chance anymore, no matter how small that chance may be.

Cap'n Cat wrote:

andy7171 wrote:Man, these are the slow days of the summer. Cap'n can't find his funny. D1B can't jump start a Catholic hate thread. These are the doldrums just before the season starts.

Not only will I slap the sh*t outta Z, I'll fly into Horse Apple, Virginia and kick your skinny little ass, too.....the same day!!!

andy7171 wrote:

Cap'n Cat wrote:

Not only will I slap the sh*t outta Z, I'll fly into Horse Apple, Virginia and kick your skinny little ass, too.....the same day!!!

I can tke alot of abuse, but if you call me a Virginian one more time it's war!

Cap'n Cat wrote:

andy7171 wrote:Man, these are the slow days of the summer. Cap'n can't find his funny. D1B can't jump start a Catholic hate thread. These are the doldrums just before the season starts.

Not only will I slap the sh*t outta Z, I'll fly into Horse Apple, Virginia and kick your skinny little ass, too.....the same day!!!