In separate instances, over three years, three Benedictine clerics at St. John’s Abbey and university sexually abused a teenaged student, according to a new civil lawsuit filed today.
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Once again, facing a child sex abuse and cover-up scandal, St. John’s Abbey officials trot out the same tired canard about their “policies” about pedophilia. (“Lawsuit targets St. John’s Prep School, abbey,” Dec. 9.)
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Collegeville, Minn. — Rita Prince and Terry Ryan stood beneath the massive concrete bell tower at St. John’s University in Collegeville, clutching a picture of their brother. In the 1960s-era photo, Patrick Ryan is dressed smartly in a black suit, his reddish-brown hair swept to the side.
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SHOREVIEW – A national support group for people molested by clergy plans to pass out leaflets in protest today outside a Shoreview church where a Collegeville monk worked for two years.
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Members of a church sex-abuse survivors group will distribute pamphlets at St. Stephen Catholic Church in Anoka on Sunday morning informing parishioners that a former teacher of the parish school was recently identified as an accused abuser.
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A former Minnesota man who was a 1983 victim of sexual abuse at St. John’s Preparatory School in Collegeville, MN is challenging local Catholic officials to explain why they shared a nine year silence about abuse allegations against a priest. He is also requesting that leaders with the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and St. John’s Abbey take immediate steps to notify all potential victims of the cleric and former teacher.
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COLLEGEVILLE – A former St. John’s Preparatory School student launched a Web site Wednesday to help molestation victims and challenged Catholic officials in a letter to defend delays in notifying potential victims.
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COLLEGEVILLE – A former St. John’s Preparatory School student launched a Web site today to help clergy molestation victims and challenged local Catholic officials to come clean.
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COLLEGEVILLE – Pat Marker felt he was prevented from helping those who needed help the most. Marker resigned in protest Friday from an external review board formed as part of St. John’s Abbey’s response to a clergy sexual abuse scandal.
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COLLEGEVILLE – A member of the external review board formed as part of St. John’s Abbey’s response to allegations of sexual misconduct has resigned in protest of what he said was a delay in publicly disclosing accusations of sexual abuse.
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ST. LOUIS PARK – St. John’s Abbey officials say the claims made Wednesday by a national advocacy group for clergy molestation victims are inaccurate.
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August 9, 2006

Dear Abbot Klassen:

Founded in 1989, SNAP is a 7000+ member support group for women and men who have been wounded by sexually abusive priests, nuns, seminarians and bishops. We are the largest and oldest such self-help group dedicated to healing the wounded and protecting the vulnerable.
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The names have been added to the list of St. John’s Abbey clerics who have faced allegations of sexual abuse recently or in the more distant past. The names of three priests accused of sexual misconduct, primarily in the 1970s and ’80s, have been released by St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., abbey officials said Wednesday.
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In the wake of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic church, diocese across the country have set up policy review boards. Two boards in central Minnesota are beginning their work, one at St. John’s Abbey and the other at the St. Cloud Diocese. Their purpose is to monitor the church’s policies and response to sexual abuse. Church officials say the boards have been thoughtfully developed. They say many have a mix of non-Catholic as well as Catholic members, abuse victims and law enforcement officials. But victims’ rights groups are less optimistic. They doubt the review boards will have the power to make any real change in church policy.
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THE CHURCH in the United States is experiencing a crisis without precedent in our times,” say the U.S. bishops in the opening sentence of their 2002 Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. In this unprecedented crisis, all the Church’s members need to be honest about its extent and what steps are needed to begin healing. This special issue is one contribution toward that twofold goal.
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Only five months ago, attorney Jeffrey Anderson of St. Paul lambasted Benedictine monks at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., as “the worst among the orders — the darkest of the dark.”
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Collegeville — Gathered on the very grounds where monks of St. John’s Abbey sexually abused them, past victims Tuesday embraced reparations they hope will become a model for the Roman Catholic Church.
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Collegeville – Expressing his sorrow to victims who had been sexually abused by St. John’s Abbey monks, Abbot John Klassen outlined Tuesday a far-reaching settlement that ensures that new abuse allegations against monks will be reported to an outside investigative review board.
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Collegeville – An apology, validation and a promise to ensure sexual abuse won’t happen to another child or adult. These, for many survivors of clergy sexual abuse, are far more important than financial settlement.
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In an idyllic campus setting 80 miles from the Twin Cities, the world’s largest Benedictine abbey houses a university, prep school, monastery _ and more than a dozen monks under restrictions for life for sexually abusing adolescents or young adults.
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