Wisconsin prosecutor to investigate sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul announced the sexual abuse investigation Friday of children by members of the Catholic clergy in the state

Photo: Christopher Furlong / Getty Images

Wisconsin authorities will initiate an investigation into the state’s Catholic dioceses and religious orders to determine how many members of the clergy have sexually assaulted children over the years .

Attorney General Josh Kaul will review complaints and investigations into the assault sexual intercourse of minors by the clergy in the five Catholic dioceses of Wisconsin , according to reported Thursday Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

According to the outlet, Kaul notified the state’s five dioceses, as well as separate orders of Catholic priests, that his office will review allegations of sexual abuse of minors against clergy and other religious leaders , according to a letter obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Wi Wisconsin is home to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and the Dioceses of Madison, Green Bay, La Crosse and Superior.

In that letter, the state attorney’s office says it will review complaints of abuses that led to the suicide of Nate Lindstrom , who assured in 2019 that was sexually abused by three priests of the Abbey of Saint Norbert in De Pere, when he was a teenager.

The Catholic Abbey paid him almost $ 400, 000 dollars over a period of ten years, for the they called “pastoral guide.”

The money was sent every month without a court order or contract in effect until May of 2019 , when the abbey abruptly stopped payments. In March 2020, Lindstrom took his own life at his home. I had 45 years.

“I agree with the many survivors of clergy abuse, and those who support and advocate for them, that a review of our office is necessary to provide accountability and ultimately healing,” Kaul wrote in the letter.

Years calling for abuses to be investigated clergy sex

Wisconsin will be the twenty-third state to open a state investigation into clergy abuse and cover-up in religious organizations.

On 2019, the order of Saint Norbert identified 22 priests of the abbey and other Norbertine institutions with “credible allegations of sexual abuse d e a minor ”for a period of 60 years.

One of the priests accused by Lindstrom was convicted in 2004 for sexual assault on a student, while the second denies the accusations and the third died in 2018.

After Lindstrom’s suicide, a nonprofit organization against clergy abuse: Nate’s Mission (“Nate’s mission”), which seeks “recognition of victims, accountability of criminals and those who trained them,” according to its website.

“Survivors in Wisconsin have suffered and struggled for years urging justice officials to finally take action to protect children in our religious institutions,” said or this Friday in a statement Peter Isely, one of the founders of Nate’s Mission.

Isely indicated that she hopes that on Monday, when several ecclesiastical officials meet with Kaul, they will offer “all the documents and evidence on the institutional cover-up of these crimes, present and past.”

With information from EFE