MN- Archbishop's “first job,” SNAP says: “Stop record shredding”

For immediate release: Thursday, March 13, 2014

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314-566-9790 cell, [email protected])

Now that Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt is back on the job, he should immediately stop the destruction of church abuse records and fire – or at least publicly denounce - the staffer who recently admitted doing it or others who have done likewise.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/us/minnesota-archbishop-will-not-face-charges.html

In an MPR report just over two weeks ago (in paragraph 11 of a 13 paragraph story), an archdiocesan official made a disturbing revelation:

Setter, who carried out investigations of priests for the archdiocese for more than a decade, told police that he had a policy of destroying records after five years and therefore no longer had his final report summarizing the investigation. Setter also said that he recently changed his policy and now destroys records after two years.

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/02/25/priest-searched-online-for-sexual-images-of-children-according-to-police-report

For ten years, this man, Richard Setter, has done 'investigations' of child sex abuse reports for the archdiocese. It's not clear to us whether he's still with the archdiocese. If he is, he should be fired. If he is not, Nienstedt should still publicly denounce him.

We hope Nienstedt will take strong, clear and public steps to stop the destruction of abuse documents and publicly instruct other church staff and volunteers to stop doing it.

Children are safer and justice is possible when records are preserved, not destroyed.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 25 years and have more than 15,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org) 

Contact - David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, [email protected]), Barbara Dorris (314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell, [email protected]),Bob Schwiderski of Wayzata