Minnetonka priest’s tenant is ex-priest who abused teen

[trotsky]

http://www.startribune.com/local/232770361.html

A Catholic priest in Minnetonka who told his parishioners two weeks ago that the church needs to rid itself of priests involved in sexual misconduct and “hold those who covered it up very much accountable” has been renting his townhouse to an abusive priest since 2006.

The Rev. David Ostrowski said in an interview Wednesday that his renter, ex-priest Fran Hoefgen, has been a friend since they were monks together at St. John’s Abbey nearly 30 years ago. Ostrowski, who is pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary, said his housing relationship with Hoefgen it is merely an act of friendship.

“I know some people will see it as a criticism of me, but I was just trying to be a friend to him, that’s all,” Ostrowski told the Star Tribune.

....

Ostrowski said he was referring to a former priest at Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Rev. Jerome Kern, at mass on Nov. 9 when he urged parishioners to go to police with any reports of sexual abuse and said: “We have to rid our church of these mentally ill men, and we also have to hold those who covered it up very much accountable.” Kern is the subject of new sexual abuse claims.

Just an act of friendship, to protect an abuser. Hypocrisy is OK when it's your good friend, I guess.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Wait a minute.

It is possible to condemn child sexual abuse and still have compassion enough for an ex-abuser to provide him with lodging.

I know nothing about this case, but presumably the ex-priest has served out whatever sentence he was given for whatever offenses he had been convicted of. What is he supposed to do now, go live under a bridge? That's what happens to sex offenders who have served out their sentences in some parts of the country where the residence restrictions are so harsh that there is noplace else for the released offenders to live. I happen to believe in rehabilitation and redemption.

I will add that Minnesota has a program for committing and treating the worst of their sex offenders. To date, they have released only one offender from this program; the rest are serving out what amounts to life sentences. So we know that this ex-priest was not assessed as being extremely high-risk for reoffense.

[exboyfil]

2. Agree with you

unless the apartment allowed greater access to children, renting to the ex-priest is just compassion.

[trotsky]

3. More info from the article:

Hoefgen admitted to police in 1984 that he sexually abused a 17-year-old boy at a parish in Cold Spring, Minn., where he served as a priest. He wasn’t charged with a crime, and church officials reassigned him to a parish in Hastings without telling parishioners about the previous abuse. On Tuesday, Hoefgen was accused in a new lawsuit of sexually abusing a boy at the Hastings parish.

He was never given a sentence - for unknown reasons, despite admitting to the crime, he was not charged, and the church (as we see now was quite routine) transferred him somewhere else, where then he then engaged in new crimes.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. What the church did in 1984 was wrong. Also the police should have pushed it then.

He should have been charged & tried. No dispute about that.

How long ago did the Hastings allegations occur? He may end up being tried for this one, which would only be right. However, conviction and sentencing for a past crime is one thing, and current risk is another. If the event or events occurred long ago, it is not clear that he would still pose a risk for reoffense.

[trotsky]

5. I think this situation is a perfect picture of the institutional problem that led to so much abuse.

I'm not interested in looking for reasons to excuse the behavior of the hypocritical priest or the abuser he assisted.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. I'm trying to address a general problem, not necessarily this specific case.

[trotsky]

7. Exactly my point - the people who were in positions to do something

either did nothing, or helped the abuser.

The sheltering priest in this case felt he needed to help his friend. He even offers hair-splitting defense - because the known victim of the priest was 17, "he's not a pedophile."

Will be interesting to see the details of the new abuse allegations.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. One can have victims under age 13 and still not be a pedophile.

Can I assume you're familiar with this study, for example? (It's behind a firewall, so I can only post the abstract without incurring copyright problems; if you were to want the whole thing, I could backchannel you a copy under fair-use conditions)

The Utility of the Diagnosis of Pedophilia: A Comparison of Various Classification Procedures
Arch Sex Behav (2007) 36:423–436 DOI 10.1007/s10508-006-9091-x

Drew A. Kingston · Philip Firestone · Heather M. Moulden · John M. Bradford

Received: 4 November 2005 / Revised: 11 April 2006 / Accepted: 24 June 2006 / Published online: 21 December 2006 ⃝C Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006

Abstract
This study examined the utility of the diagnosis of pedophilia in a sample of extra-familial child molesters assessed at a university teaching hospital between 1982 and 1992. Pedophilia was defined in one of four ways: (1) DSM diagnosis made by a psychiatrist; (2) deviant phallometric profile; (3) DSM diagnosis and a deviant phallometric pro- file; and, (4) high scores based on the Screening Scale for Pedophilic Interest (Seto & Lalumie`re, 2001). Demographic data, psychological tests, and offence history were obtained and group differences were analyzed along with the ability of certain variables to contribute uniquely to the classification of pedophilia. Results indicated that few significant differ- ences existed on psychological measures between pedophilic and nonpedophilic extra-familial child molesters regardless of the classification system employed. Finally, results indi- cated that the procedures used to define pedophilia were not significantly related to one another. Results are discussed in terms of the utility of the diagnosis of pedophilia.

[trotsky]

13. Not really interested in the diagnostic classifications in this context. n/t

[skepticscott]

21. And as long as you're not an official "pedophile"

everything is hunky-dory, right? Rape and child molestation to your heart's content?

[Jackpine Radical]

22. I'm gonna turn you in to the ASPSM.

The Association for the Protection of Straw Men.

[skepticscott]

23. You're the one who brought up the diagnostic classification

as if it mattered at all to this issue. Any decent person knows that it doesn't, but this is the same tactic the RCC tried, despicably.

[Jackpine Radical]

24. The term has a specific clinical meaning with forensic implications.

The issue of "mental abnormality" relates to sex offender commitment according to 2 Supreme Court cases, Crane and Hendricks.

[skepticscott]

25. And why does it matter

whether a priest who rapes children qualifies specifically as a "pedophile" in determining the moral guilt of those who cover up and enable the crime, and those here who are apologists for it?

[Jackpine Radical]

28. Since you seem to be labelling me an apologist, let me be clearer about my stance.

First--The Catholic Church has been absolutely criminal in covering up the sexual offenses of its priests and, as far as I'm concerned, those involved ought to be prosecuted under the RICO Act as members of a corrupt organization.

Second--Those guilty of committing sex offenses with victims (rape, child molestation, etc.) ought to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. There ought to be no statute of limitations applied either to the criminal sanctions nor to the right of victims to collect civil damages.

Third--When a victim is 17 years old (actually, over 16), they have reached the age of consent in some states, and sexual offenses against them drop from felonies to misdemeanors in most other states. I'm pretty sure Mn is in this latter category. Therefore, if the priest's first victim was over 16 when the acts occurred, and assuming that no force or other unusual circumstances applied, he committed a misdemeanor, not a felony. That may be why the police didn't really push the case in the first place.

Fourth--If new sexual allegations have come to light, they ought to be prosecuted appropriately.

Fifth, no such new allegations were known at the time of Ostrowski's renting the place to Hoefgen. I do not find it unreasonable to have rented to him under those circumstances.

And 6th, the pedophilia diagnosis comes into play when people start describing sex ofenders as "mentally ill," and especially when they start seeking to commit them under the Sex Offender Commitment laws that exist in 20n states, of which Mn is one.

[skepticscott]

29. All of which is irrelevant to your post 8

Mental illness was not the issue there, so we have to wonder why you felt the need to inject apologetic hairsplitting.

[Jackpine Radical]

30. I would argue that it has nothing to do with "moral guilt"

but does play a role in things such as evaluating likelihood of recidivism. The term entered the discussion, not from me, but from the priest who was providing lodging for the sex offender.

[rug]

9. That has less to do with his view of pedophilia than with his capaign against all things religious.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. So I gather.

Incidentally, and as an adjunct to my comments in this thread, I have dealt professionally with victims of clergy sexual abuse and with clergy who have been convicted of sexual abuse, in various contexts ranging from the therapy room to the courtroom.

[rug]

11. Difficult work. What's your discipline?

[Jackpine Radical]

12. Psychology.

But there are those who would question the use of the word "discipline" with regard to me in any context that doesn't imply my lack of, and need for, it.

[rug]

14. I used to work at a maximum security forensic psychiatric hosptal in New York.

A lot of states, including New York, are now authorizing civil psychiatric commitments for sex offenders after the expiration of their sentences.

Your comments in the first post are spot on.

[Jackpine Radical]

16. 20 states plus the Feds have sex offender commitment programs.

I've been involved in many such cases.

[dimbear]

19. For many many similar reports, follow Kathy Shaw at AbuseTracker:

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker/

In particular have a peek at her bio page. She must hate religion with a passion.

[rug]

26. Oh I'm sure his antipathy to religion hasn't a thing to do with this post.

Why, if the RCC marched every priest down to the police station, he would have nothing but good to sayt about religion.



And I haven't seen a word about delusions, poison or unicorns at bishop accountability in all the time I've followed it.

[dimbear]

27. I should make it clear to anyone just passing by that Kathy Shaw is a passionate reformer,

but very much a religious person herself. Award winning, as it were.

[Rob H.]

15. "So we know that this ex-priest was not assessed as being extremely high-risk for reoffense."

Which was a gigantic mistake, if what's now being alleged turns out to be true.

Lawsuit says ex-Hastings priest abused boy after undergoing sex-offender treatment
By Emily Gurnon
Posted: 11/19/2013 12:01:00 AM CST

A former Hastings priest and St. John's Abbey are among defendants in a lawsuit filed Tuesday by a Minnesota man who alleges the priest sexually abused him after "graduating" from a sex-offender treatment facility.

The plaintiff, now in his 30s, also sued the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the treatment center, St. Luke Institute of Silver Spring, Md.

Francis Hoefgen admitted to police in 1984 that he sexually abused a minor, then was assigned the next year to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton church in Hastings after an evaluation at the institute, said the plaintiff's attorney, Jeff Anderson, of St. Paul, in a statement.

Hoefgen sexually abused the plaintiff, identified as John Doe 27, at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton from about 1989 to 1992, the suit claimed. The boy was then 10 to 13 years old.

Full article here.

[Jackpine Radical]

17. More than 20 years ago.

And the MN commitment program didn't exist back then.

I take it, from the certainty with which you address this issue, that you know all about sex offender recidivism data & are prepared to refute the findings of studies like that of Carr, Schlank & Parker (2013) on the Florida commitment program, not to mention Grant Duwe's recent (2013) MnSOST-3-based study of the Minnesota commitment program itself. What do you make of Wollert & Waggoner's age x recidivism data, by the way?

Or, to put it more generally, do you favor Bayesian or frequentist statistical approaches to analyzing recidivism data?

[Rob H.]

18. So the program didn't exist then?

Last edited Thu Nov 21, 2013, 09:01 PM - Edit history (2)

Then why did you write, "So we know that this ex-priest was not assessed as being extremely high-risk for reoffense" since in the context of the paragraph in which that sentence appears, that sentence implies that he was part of the program and did go through an assessment process and was released? Furthermore, the current suit in the article that I linked alleges that this latest client's molestation lasted for a period of three years ending 11 years ago, not more than 20.

As for the rest of it, I don't give a shit. What I do care about is that when he admitted he molested a child, not only did the church do nothing to boot him out, they moved him to a new parish where he could (and allegedly did) molest someone else. You want to believe in "rehabilitation and redemption" for child molesters, knock yourself out. Given that in the aforementioned suit the molestation occurred after the priest "graduated" from a treatment program, I won't be joining you.

[Jackpine Radical]

20. I was clearly wrong about his having undergone the sort of risk assessment

that later was put into place. My apologies.

Nevertheless, at this point, in actuarial terms, I expect that his likelihood of recidivating is pretty low.

See this study for details on Catholic clergy recidivism:

Predicting Relapse for Catholic Clergy Sex Offenders: The Use of the Static-99

Stephen Montana, Gary Thompson, Peter Ellsworth, MS, Hugh Lagan, Leslie Helmus and Colin J. Rhoades

Sex Abuse published online 15 May 2012