INNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota bishop who’s the subject of a Vatican-ordered investigation said in sworn testimony released Tuesday that he was trying to protect the confidentiality of a man who said he was sexually abused by a popular priest when he certified to other church officials that the priest was fit for ministry and to work with children.
Bishop Michael Hoeppner of the Diocese of Crookston in northwestern Minnesota acknowledged in the videotaped deposition last year that he stated in writing to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 2012 that Monsignor Roger Grundhaus was “a person of good moral character and reputation” and that he was unaware of anything in the priest’s background that would “render him unsuitable to work with minor children.”
But the accuser, Ron Vasek, had already told Hoeppner by 2011 that Grundhaus had abused him in the early 1970s when he was 16. Vasek was hoping to become a deacon when he met with the bishop. Vasek would later sue the diocese, alleging that the bishop blackmailed him into retracting his allegations. That lawsuit
settled for an undisclosed sum in 2017.
Pressed by attorney Jeffrey Anderson on why he made that assertion to the archdiocese when he already knew about Vasek’s allegations, the bishop replied that Vasek had asked him for “complete confidentiality” and that he was respecting that.
Minnesota bishop defends conduct in sexual abuse case | National Catholic Reporter
