Group, archdiocese differ on case

SNAP says Catholic officials should have done more after a con man who posed as a deacon was sued in 2007 for abuse.

Star Tribune

Last update: October 8, 2009 - 8:59 PM

A victim-advocacy group chastised the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis on Thursday for lack of action after a 2007 sex-abuse lawsuit was filed against a man who allegedly molested a schoolboy while posing as a deacon.

"They should have at least called the cops," said Bob Schwiderski, Minnesota director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

The archdiocese acted appropriately, said Dennis McGrath, the archdiocese's director of communications. "That includes going to the parish and explaining everything to the members."

The 2007 suit filed by Benjamin Magler said Thomas Kemp passed himself off as a deacon at St. Agnes Parish in St. Paul from 1986 to 1992. Magler had gone to him for counseling.

"SNAP is upset that for nearly two years, archdiocesan staff has evidently done little to nothing to find others who were hurt by Kemp or warn others at risk about Kemp," Schwiderski said.

The archdiocese, which is named as a party in Magler's suit, said it is doing what it can while the case is in litigation. It also denied that Kemp was ever employed as a deacon.

"There is no record of him getting a paycheck," McGrath said, adding that the archdiocese stands by what it said when the suit was filed: "At no time was he a member of the Catholic clergy here or elsewhere. ... He was a con man."

Kemp, now 62, left St. Agnes and Minnesota in 1992, the year the church began background checks on clergy.

JEFF STRICKLER

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