An announcement we didn’t want to make…
Just over a year ago, Wisconsin’s Catholic bishops, led by Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee, openly defied Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, accusing him of “anti-Catholic bigotry” and announcing their intention to obstruct his investigation. Despite the fact that Pope Francis announced he was lifting “papal secrecy,” a change in Church policy that, in theory, would mandate total cooperation with state investigations such as Kaul’s, Wisconsin's dioceses proceeded to deny their role in the perpetuation of sexual abuse and its concealment from Wisconsin’s Catholic families, minimize the scope and magnitude of the crisis they produced, and attack survivors and those who have supported them in their fight for justice and transparency.
We expected that Attorney General Kaul and the Wisconsin Department of Justice would not stand for their refusal to cooperate. Yet one year later, neither the Attorney General, nor any of the five district attorneys who stood behind him during his announcement of the investigation have made any apparent effort to use the power of their collective offices to enforce compliance by issuing subpoenas for documents and compelling testimony of Church officials. Inexplicably, after Nate’s Mission delivered thousands of pages of documents and evidence to the Attorney General in January, the organization was notified last month that a significant portion of the evidence of criminal child rape and sexual abuse was returned to the dioceses' corporate lawyers - potentially exposing the whistleblowers, people of great courage and integrity, to retaliation.
This is why we gathered yesterday in Madison to issue a progress report for Attorney General Kaul and his investigation. We assessed his performance on the following categories:
Retrieval of documents and evidence
Outreach to survivors
Audit of Church offender lists
Criminal prosecutions
Investigation of senior Church management
Oversight of Church abuse policies and practices
Treatment of whistleblowers
Photo from Wisconsin Eye. View Wisconsin Eye’s full livestream of the press conference here
With just over six months left in his term, survivors and advocates feel a great sense of urgency around the course of the investigation and Attorney General Kaul’s willingness to keep the promises he made to survivors last April. Time is running out, and we must reverse the course of his investigation - before it is too late.
Nate’s Mission is the only survivor-led organization in Wisconsin advocating for a justice-centered investigation and challenging the Attorney General to hold the Church accountable using the full extent of the law.
To continue our work, we need your help. Nate’s Mission is a survivor-driven 501(c)3 organization. Every tax-deductible donation is critical to our ability to influence this investigation while we still can.
As you feel led, please share this message with your family and friends who support survivors and our mission for justice and transparency.
Sincerely,
The Nate's Mission Team