Roman Archbishop Weakland publicly taught at WLC,
apparently "outside the framework of fellowship."
Listecki misled legislators on policy, Eau Claire police chief says
The Eau Claire police chief is accusing Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki of being untruthful to lawmakers about the notification procedure for clergy sex abuse allegations in the La Crosse Diocese, where he previously served as bishop.
In a development that victims' advocates say is related, a La Crosse priest has been charged with sexually assaulting a woman he was counseling through a divorce, months after the diocese investigated and found no credible evidence supporting her accusations.
In a Jan. 22 letter to state Sen. Jon Erpenbach, Eau Claire Police Chief Jerry Matysik takes issue with a La Crosse Diocese policy that directs those with accusations of clergy sex abuse involving children to notify the diocese - rather than civil authorities, as directed by some dioceses.
According to Matysik, Listecki told Erpenbach during a Jan. 12 Senate Judiciary hearing that the policy was not current, saying, "If you take a look at the statement, that's not something that is happening now."
Matysik said the policy has remained unchanged, only substituting Diocesan Administrator Monsignor Richard Gilles' name as the point of contact for Listecki's, who took over as Milwaukee's archbishop in January.
In the letter to Erpenbach, Matysik said: "Senator Erpenbach, I carefully reviewed the interchange between you and Archbishop Listecki and it is clear that Archbishop Listecki's response was untruthful."
In an interview Thursday, Matysik said about Listecki: "He either misunderstood the question or misled the committee."
For more than a year, Matysik has been trying to get the La Crosse Diocese to change the statement, which appeared in the La Crosse Catholic Times as recently as late January.
"Archbishop Listecki appears more interested in protecting the organization than he is in protecting children," he said.
Listecki was not available for comment Thursday, his spokeswoman said. Erpenbach did not return a call seeking comment. The Jan. 12 hearing involved a bill that would make it easier for sex abuse victims to sue their offenders, which Listecki testified against.
Attorney defends diocese
La Crosse Diocese attorney James Birnbaum said the diocese's notification policy has been vetted by auditors and law enforcement officials on its sex abuse review board and made available to prosecutors in the diocese's 19 counties, and that no one but Matysik has taken issue with it. He said the policy lets the diocese respond more quickly to protect children, and that it turns over all allegations involving children immediately to civil authorities as required by law."We've never failed to report (child sex abuse) immediately to authorities," he said.
The Milwaukee Archdiocese's notification statement, which is posted on its Web site at www.archmil.org, directs those with complaints of sexual abuse involving victims younger than age 18 to notify civil authorities.
The latest sex abuse charge in La Crosse, against the Rev. Edmund Donkor-Baine, a visiting priest from Guyana, involves an adult, for which there is no state requirement to notify civil authorities. But it illustrates the concerns raised by victim advocates who say the La Crosse Diocese, where Listecki served as bishop from 2005 until 2009, sides overwhelmingly with priests over victims.
Donkor-Baine, 47, is accused of indecently touching a 47-year-old woman and forcing her to touch him in August while they sat in a vehicle in the Town of Shelby, according to the La Crosse County Sheriff's Department.
Donkor-Baine, who is free on a $250 signature bond, is scheduled for a hearing Feb. 11 in La Crosse County Circuit Court on a charge of fourth-degree sexual assault.
La Crosse County Sheriff's Capt. Kurt Papenfuss said the woman first reported the incident to the diocese, but it dismissed the allegations as not credible.
Birnbaum denied that characterization in an interview Thursday but was quoted in the La Crosse Tribune as saying "sufficient evidence did not exist to confirm the woman's story. There were no other like or similar allegations ever made."
A letter from Listecki to the woman in December said he needed a "sufficient amount of corroborating evidence to proceed" and could not "conclusively determine what happened," but the diocese has taken steps to limit and monitor the priest's activities.
A study for the U.S. Conference of Bishops found that the La Crosse Diocese sided with priests over victims in 64% of cases, compared with the national average of just less than 10%.
"This is a real-time illustration of what we've been trying to bring forward about the problem up there," Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said of the charges against Donkor-Baine. "The bishop is instructing Catholics to report sex crimes to him. That's what this woman did, and this is what happened."
Papenfuss and Matysik, who was not involved in the investigation involving the woman, said victims of crimes should notify police, not the perpetrator or his employer.
"If my car is stolen, I'm not going to go to the thief," Papenfuss said. "Why would you go to the person who wronged you?"
