According to official reports, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis was aware one of their own was sexually abusing children and did not fire him until he was caught, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer was immediately let go from his position last year after accusations of sexual assault surfaced, and the archdiocese was thanked by law enforcement for acting so quickly. However, reports from canon lawyer Jennifer Haselberger allege church officials were aware of his actions and still kept him in ministry.
"At every step of the way, this could have been prevented," said Haselberger. "This is just failure after failure after failure after failure."
Wehmeyer, the former vicar general, was charged with abusing two boys and possessing child pornography. He is currently serving a five-year sentence and declined to comment on the case. Archbishop John Nienstedt also declined to comment.
However, Rev. Kevin McDonough, who served as vicar general before Wehmeyer and ran the child abuse prevention program in the archdiocese, said nothing church officials knew about Wehmeyer was deemed as threatening to children.
In a memo he wrote in 2011, McDonough explained why Wehmeyer was not seen as a threat.
"He really was not all that interested in an actual sexual encounter, but rather was obtaining some stimulation by 'playing with fire,'" McDonough wrote. "This sort of behavior would not show up in the workplace."
Officials were aware that Wehmeyer approached young men in a book store asking for sex in 2004 and walked in a park known for anonymous sex in 2006.
"Nothing, nothing, nothing in this man's behavior known to us would have convinced any reasonable person that he was likely to harm kids," McDonough said in the memo.
Haselberger was hired to work for the church in 2008 and noticed a few months in that there was never a background check conducted for Wehmeyer, despite the church's policy. Since she was aware that Nienstedt was thinking about promoting Wehmeyer, she encouraged him to perform a background check, which ended up bringing in reports of suspicious behavior.
Just a year after she urged Nienstedt to go through with a background check, someone said they saw Wehmeyer acting suspicious with boys on a playground -- both of whom accused him of sexual abuse.
