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Court Records Disclose Wis. Priest's Abuse History

 

MILWAUKEE Long before his transfer to California, leaders of theMilwaukee Roman Catholic Archdiocese knew of a priest's sexual abuse ofyoung boys, yet they advised church officials there he would be "nogreat risk" doing pastoral work, according to court documents.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said in a story in its Sunday editionthat the disclosures are in court records it obtained from JeffAnderson, a Minneapolis lawyer who has represented victims of abuse bymembers of the clergy in Wisconsin, California and other states.

The case of Siegfried Widera, who committed suicide while being chasedby authorities four years ago, is important to Wisconsin Catholicsbecause it could only be pursued in California.

Under Wisconsinlaw, the church cannot be held responsible for actions of priests, butthe law is being challenged, and a victory on the part of victims couldopen the church to legal action here as well.

Last fall, the Milwaukee Archdiocese agreed to pay $16.65 million to 10 Widera victims in California.

"In Wisconsin, we have never been able to see these records because itis the only state in the country that gives the church ironcladprotection," Anderson said. "Civil lawsuits ... are the only mechanismwe have to make these horrible secrets known."

Last week,Superior Court Judge Peter D. Lichtman of Los Angeles ordered theArchdiocese of Milwaukee to make public 3,000 pages of insurancerecords and hundreds of pages from the secret disciplinary files ofWidera. The records are to be released within 30 days.

In anews release Friday, Kathleen Hohl, spokeswoman for the MilwaukeeArchdiocese, said the church had "acknowledged that its previouspolicies to address the issue of clergy sexual abuse of children didnot sufficiently hold offenders responsible for their actions orprotect children."

But the church has tried to prevent releaseof the documents as the Wisconsin law has been upheld twice by thestate Supreme Court. In April, the high court will hear a challengefrom Wisconsin victims of Widera who are represented by Anderson.

Lichtman, the California judge, wrote that Widera's files prove that"priests with known sexual proclivities have been handed off fromlocation to another without regard to the potential harm to thechildren of the Church."

Among other information in the documents:

-- Six years after his ordination, Widera was arrested in PortWashington for sexual contact with an 11-year-old boy. He admitted thecrime and similar conduct with several other boys but was convicted in1973 of just one count of sexual perversion. He was given three years'probation and ordered to stay out of Ozaukee County.

A policereport quotes an officer who interviewed Widera as saying, "For himthis stuff was like saying 'I breathe air' or 'I eat food.' He feltthat these acts of molesting young boys were normal and natural."

-- After the arrest, Widera began seeing a church-employed therapistand wound up being assigned to a Delavan parish where he was animmediate success.

-- In June 1976, the archdiocese learned ofnew abuse accusations by an Elkhorn therapist who was treating a boy.The therapist, assured Widera would get inpatient treatment, persuadedthe boy's mother not to go to police.

-- A letter to theCatholic bishop in California's Orange County asked that Widera begiven a temporary assignment and stated he "has done good work." Theletter from then-Bishop William Cousins acknowledged there had been a"moral problem" earlier involving a boy and a "repetition" morerecently, but he wrote, "From all of the professional information I cangather there would seem to be no great risk in allowing this man toreturn to pastoral work, but there are legal complications at present."

Records show Widera, transferred in 1981, moved frequently from parishto parish until California authorities in 2002 issued 33 felony sexabuse charges against him. In 2002 and 2003, Wisconsin authoritiesissued 11 felony charges against Widera in two counties on accusationsdating to the 1970s.

Widera went on the run. Cornered at a hotel resort in Mexico, he jumped from a balcony to his death on May 27, 2003.