Media Statements

March 26, 2019

Dear Attorney General Schmitt:

It’s been seven months since your office began looking into clergy sex crimes and cover ups in Missouri’s Catholic dioceses. Your Illinois colleague is conducting a similar probe. Let’s compare the two.

--Fr. Charles Potocki, whose name was included among 17 released by the St. Paul archdiocese in 2014 as part of settlement. The list was of priests with 'substantiated' claims of sexual abuse of minors against them. Fr. Potocki worked in Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska and Mississippi. He was ordained in 1970,  belonged to a religious order called the Order of Friar Minor also known as Franciscan Province of the Sacred Heart (OFM) and died in 1992

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/diocesan_lists/St_Paul_and_Minneapolis/2014_10_23_Disclosures/2014_10_23_Potocki_Downloaded_2014_10_27.pdf

http://bishop-accountability.org/priestdb/PriestDBbylastName-P.html

Today, the names of two former archbishops who have been proven to have covered up cases of sexual abuse in the Diocese of Milwaukee have been removed from buildings named in their honor.

Today, West Virginia’s top law enforcement official sued the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and disgraced former Bishop, Bp. Michael Bransfield, alleging they “knowingly employed pedophiles and failed to conduct adequate background checks” for church employees in schools and camps.

Despite calling for an “all-out battle” on clergy sexual abuse less than a month ago, Pope Francis today declined to punish a French cardinal who was tried and convicted for failing to report allegations of clerical sexual abuse to police.

An explosive new documentary on clergy sex abuse in Canada is set to be released later this spring and a Windsor, ON advocate wants survivors of sexual abuse to know that they are not alone and that there are places to turn for support.

Today, the state of Maryland took its first successful step toward keeping the children of Maryland safe and providing justice to past victims of child sexual abuse.

Today, a French Cardinal who two weeks ago was given a six-month suspended sentence ignoring allegations of sexual abuse will meet with Pope Francis to tender his resignation.

--Fr. Joseph Fertal was involved in at least one civil suit and was criminally investigated in connection with allegations of child sexual abuse. He was purportedly sent to St. Michael’s Institute, an institution known for treating priests accused of child sexual abuse, multiple times beginning in the 1980s. According to San Bernardino church officials, Fr. Fertal was permanently banned from ministry in that diocese and was included in its list of clergy credibly accused of child sexual abuse. In 2003, he was believed to be living in Jemez Springs, New Mexico, the site of another church priest treatment center, but his current whereabouts are unknown. Fr. Fertal was at LoyolaUniversity and in the Philippines twice: in Manila and at the University of San Carlos in Cebu City.

--Fr. Bernard "Barney" McMeel, who was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1954. He also worked in 24 assignments in two Alaska dioceses (1955-1978), nine in Montana (1978 until his death 1994) and one in California (1954-1955).