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Friday, March 29, 2024

Archdiocese continues to meet Ramsey County settlement requirements

Oversight is set to end early next year

Meeting with victims/survivors, holding parish-wide restorative justice events and helping with seminarian formation are just some of the ways the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis continues to enhance its safe environment efforts and comply with a 2015 settlement agreement it entered into with the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office.

That’s according to a report the archdiocese presented Aug. 6 in Ramsey County Court, the kind of appearance it has made every six months since the agreement was signed.

In the 20-minute hearing, Thomas Ring, Ramsey County assistant attorney, said the archdiocese remains in substantial compliance with the agreement. Ramsey County Judge Teresa Warner said she found the same, based on the report, Ring’s endorsement and testimony given by Janell Rasmussen, deputy director of the archdiocese’s Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment.

Joe Dixon, attorney for the archdiocese, emphasized that the archdiocese “has really taken on the spirit of the agreement” and continues to take measures that go beyond its formal terms.

The reports are required under an agreement with Ramsey County on civil charges the county filed against the archdiocese in 2015, alleging it was negligent in the case of three brothers who were sexually abused by former priest Curtis Wehmeyer at Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul in 2010 and 2011. The settlement agreement was amended in June 2016, when Ramsey County dismissed related criminal charges.

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The latest report is the archdiocese’s seventh. The court’s oversight is set to end early next year. Warner said she is open to a Jan. 31 or Feb. 3 court date, whichever the county attorney’s office and the archdiocese agree upon, for what could be the archdiocese’s final report under the agreement.

Among the latest developments:

  • Having earlier met settlement agreement requirements regarding restorative justice sessions, the archdiocese continues to promote them, with a growing number of parishes and ministries organizing presentations, prayer services and healing circles of prayer and sharing, the report said. At least 10 such events have been held since February.
  • The archdiocese engaged with private donors and clergy to help fund a victim outreach initiative that includes an Outreach Coordinator for Restorative Justice and Abuse Prevention. Paula Kaempffer began work June 10.
  • First steps were taken to create an electronic submission process for parish and school reports of compliance with background checks, safe environment training and a code of conduct. Recommended by an external audit conducted last September by Rochester, New York-based Stonebridge Business Partners, the reports also will include spreadsheets documenting compliance for employees and volunteers.
  • The archdiocese received spring audit reports with the requested spreadsheets from 90 of 90 schools, 190 of 190 parishes and four of four other parish-like entities. Those reports are being examined for compliance, with staff working individually with parishes and schools.
  • The settlement agreement requires that the archdiocese conduct parish and school visits every seven years, and complete no less than 15 percent, or 43, parish and school visits annually during the agreement. This spring the staff visited 45 sites.
  • Tim O’Malley, director of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment, and Rasmussen continue to be involved in formation efforts at The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity and St. John Vianney Seminary, both in St. Paul.
  • Policy reviews and revisions continue. One change in the last six months: Parish trustees and parish council members must be current with background checks, safe environment training and a code of conduct, regardless of their interaction with minors.
  • The settlement agreement requires the archdiocese’s Office for the Protection of Children and Youth to train new safe environment coordinators at parishes and schools and revisit that training every three years. Eleven training sessions were offered between January and March.
  • The archdiocese has developed a clergy assistance plan for all clergy. Recent steps to assist clergy included a victim/survivor and his mother sharing their story during a training opportunity that 80 priests attended. They spoke of the impact of the abuse, the hope for healing, the role of the Church and the role of clergy. A psychologist offered a related presentation. And in June, O’Malley distributed a “Guidelines for Engaging in Healing Conversations with Victims of Abuse in the Church” to all clergy in the archdiocese.
  • The archdiocese was discharged from bankruptcy and the bankruptcy case was closed Dec. 21, 2018. The settlement agreement requires that the archdiocese convene and participate in a one-day “Conference for Restorative Justice and Reconciliation within eighteen months of confirmation of the dismissal date.” Planning for such a conference is underway. Rasmussen told Warner the event would be held before February 2020.
 


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