Archdiocese presses for pastoral mediation

MILWAUKEE -- The Milwaukee Archdiocese took action last week on two fronts concerning pending lawsuits, forwarding a pastoral mediation process and mediator candidates to the lawyer involved in the suits, and delivering a motion to dismiss the suits.

The Jan. 17 actions had been expected, based on previous commentary by archdiocesan officials and given the Jan. 23 deadline for the archdiocese to respond to five lawsuits filed in district court here Dec. 6. The suits were filed on behalf of victims-survivors who allege they were abused by Fr. George Nuedling, now deceased, between 1959 and 1980.

Archdiocesan spokesman Jerry Topczewski on Monday emphasized the need to rapidly move to agreement on the pastoral mediation framework and mediator selection, to be able to more comprehensively "focus on the spiritual, pastoral, emotional, psychological and restorative justice needs of the victims-survivors."

Topczewski said archdiocesan legal counsel Matthew Flynn, of Milwaukee firm Quarles and Brady, sent a letter containing the mediation process and proposing five candidates qualified to serve as mediator, to Jeffrey Anderson, the St. Paul attorney representing plaintiffs in the cases. Topczewski would not reveal the mediator candidates' names.

Anderson said he was "saddened and disappointed in the archbishop's handling" of the legal and mediation matters. "Archbishop Dolan made a promise to the survivors to follow the St. John's mediation model, and he has broken that promise," Anderson told the Catholic Herald.

The archdiocese proposed a mediation "process ... expecting give and take" to achieve a final pastoral mediation model, Topczewski noted. When asked whether Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan had rejected the St. John's mediation model -- used at St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., last year to resolve several clergy sexual abuse cases -- Topczewski said Dolan "fully embraces the 'Collegeville model' because it takes into account that mediation involves more than financial settlements."

A Jan. 16 statement issued by Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests asserted that "reversing (his) earlier position," Dolan had rejected the "model and mediator used successfully" in Collegeville. The statement said area victims of clergy sex abuse had proposed Margo Maris, one of two mediators used in the St. John's cases, and former Milwaukee Congressman Tom Barrett, to serve as mediators.

Anderson said a key element of the Collegeville model is the involvement of legal representation at all times, on all sides. "In our process, lawyers select the process, lawyers select the mediators...lawyers were and remain very involved in all phases of the process. Never has there been a mediation like the one Dolan has proposed," Anderson said.

Regarding the suits themselves, Topczewski said the archdiocese has been expecting the lawsuits to be withdrawn, given Anderson's public comment that the lawsuits would be withdrawn if mediation were pursued and specifically if Dolan would "come to the table," as reported in a December Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report. Barbara Anne Cusack, Milwaukee archdiocesan chancellor, said Dolan will be involved in the proposed pastoral mediation.

Anderson said his previous comments have been "twisted and distorted," and that the pending suits would be withdrawn should Dolan keep his word, move to implement the Collegeville model, and address the "preventative, healing and reparation" issues. For now, Anderson said he will ask the court to deny the motion to dismiss the suits at a hearing in early March.

Topczewski referenced Dolan's Jan. 2 Catholic Herald column in discussing the archdiocese's filing to dismiss the litigation. He reiterated that the archdiocese will use "legal remedies available to us. We must respond legally, because lawsuits were filed." Topczewski declined further comment on the lawsuits and move to dismiss.