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| WELS Pastor Ski posed with MariQueen, a Playboy model, publishing the photo on Facebook for everyone to see. |
Failure to supervise is an important legal issue for church bodies today. In the past, they could get away with:
- We did not know.
- We are not responsible for the actions of this individual.
- We are not a hierarchy, so we have no say in the congregation's actions.
- We do not have policies about that sort of thing, so we are not liable.
The Roman Catholic Church in America got away with sending priests into rehab for a few weeks and moving them to new locations, where they offended again. SNAP was formed to network victims and follow the trail of abusive priests.
Here is just one current story about a Milwaukee Roman Catholic official hiding money so victims would not be paid.
Covering up for abusive priests was earlier viewed as a big American problem, but the same pattern erupted in one country after another, with the same lurid stories. One of the worst offenders was a favorite in John Paul II's circle, the head of the Legion of Christ.
The excuse for Roman Catholic priests was obvious - the poor men could not marry. But the founder of the LCMS, Bishop Martin Stephan, was married, sired eight children, and still abused young women groupies in his sect, with his clergy looking the other way.
WELS and Missouri cluck their tongues sanctimoniously at ELCA and the Roman Catholics, but engage in the same cover-ups and the identical destruction of evidence in their own abuse cases.
Public documents show that Joel Hochmuth received counseling for his delight in watching man/boy rape videos. That should have been reported, by law, but no one will say who provided the counseling. Did WELS? Try to get an answer for that question.
The standards for public behavior are much stricter now. More than 20 years ago, companies sent out training tapes to watch language, jokes, posters, actions, and pictures that might be used in lawsuits about a negative atmosphere for women in the office. Universities now have required training so that no one hired can claim, "I did not know this was considered wrong." In other words, the universities can be sued for what their employees do, even though it is patently wrong in the first place.
Why sue the larger corporation for the sins of the individual?
- The congregation, district, and synod have deep pockets, liability coverage, and lawyers who might be anxious to cut a deal.
- Each level of authority has a supervisory responsibility, which can be shown to have failed. I looked over the case of one cardinal who was deposed a dozen times before he died, all examples of his criminal cover-ups of errrant, abusive priests.
WELS lost a $400,000 lawsuit in Grand Rapids when a young girl's lawyer proved WELS did not exercise proper supervision of a married vicar. The money came from the congregation and WELS, not from the former vicar. The pastor, Fred Adrian, is still serving WELS, because the Michigan District stands by its worst pastors and undercuts the faithful.
Chinatown is not just a movie: it is policy in WELS.
"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
If a woman has problems with the behavior of a WELS pastor, she should go to an attorney first, provide all the details, and have the attorney become the intermediary. I am not criticizing any pastors, but they can be buffaloed by their own bosses, who have much to gain by getting rid of the situation through lying, stalling, making excuses, inventing slander, and issuing promises never meant to be kept.
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| This is an actual screenshot from The CORE's creepy website. |
