Altar boy named in priest suit

A former altar boy who attended Caledonia’s St. John’s Parish in the 1960s publicly spoke out for the first time Thursday about abuse he said he suffered at the hands of former Diocese of Winona priest Thomas Adamson.

Bill Beardmore’s decision to speak out comes as attorney Jeff Anderson filed a new lawsuit on his behalf against the Diocese this week in Winona County District Court. The suit seeks $50,000 in damages, and, like similar suits Anderson has filed elsewhere, requests that a judge order the public release of a list that contains the names and personal information of “credibly accused child molesting priests.”

Beardmore, a 61-year-old Iowa man, grew up in Caledonia and encountered Adamson as an altar boy at St. John’s during 1963-64. Beardmore, originally listed as John Doe 16 in his lawsuit against the Diocese, spoke Thursday about being sexually abused by Adamson as a young child.

According to Beardmore and court documents, Adamson repeatedly...

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Showing 3 comments

  • bob cat
    commented 2013-11-30 18:30:54 -0600
    Thank you
  • Mary Marinkovich
    commented 2013-08-30 12:18:00 -0500
    “These beasts move among us, and we are none the wiser.” —Jodi Picault, The Perfect Match

    It is said that evil is banal, and there is nothing more evil than letting bestial men in roman collars prey on children in schools, orphanages, social programs set up to help the needy. Bishops and Cardinals and Popes, in their shabby soul impoverished lives of counting money and wearing clothing worthy of drag queens…these are the banal personifications of evil. They keep predators as pets, unleashing them in darkness to destroy innocent children, and then covering up their mess for them.
  • @ tweeted this page. 2013-08-30 11:32:27 -0500
    Check out SNAP's story of the day: "Altar boy named in priest suit" http://www.snapnetwork.org/altar_boy_named_in_priest_suit?recruiter_id=21019

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