'Credibly accused' priests

No one outside the chancery knew how many priests in the archdiocese had abused children. In 2003, U.S. bishops paid for a study to determine how many priests had abused children and why.

Researchers asked each diocese to provide the number of abusers, along with information about the age and sex of each victim and other data.

McDonough and another archdiocesan deputy came up with 33 names. Those men would later become known as the "credibly accused priests."

The archdiocese used its self-reported number as evidence that the problem of clergy sexual abuse wasn't as widespread as some reporters claimed.

"This stain will be with us for a long time," Flynn told the archdiocese's newspaper in 2003. "Even so, it is just that we not condemn the vast majority of our priests and religious for the egregious acts of the very few offenders, which as this audit and review demonstrates, is clearly the case."

In 2014, faced with a judge's order and media scrutiny, the archdiocese admitted that the list was incomplete. It added another 14 names, and MPR News reported that nearly 70 priests had been accused.

A 'psycho-sexual iceberg'

As the cover-up continued, the pace picked up. McDonough sometimes met with several abusers on the same day. He started to consider himself something of an amateur psychologist and developed his own pseudo-scientific vocabulary, as seen in hundreds of internal memos from 2002 to 2008.

Of one priest who kissed two teenage girls, McDonough wrote, "I believe that it is likely that he did kiss them without any conscious sexual intent, at least in part because he was largely unaware of that dimension of his life at that time."

He said the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer's habit of cruising nearby parks wasn't necessarily sexual. "I do not believe that Father Wehmeyer actually goes to these parks to pick up other men," McDonough wrote. "Rather he likes to be around the environment where such things are happening, since it gives him some sort of thrill." (Wehmeyer later pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two boys and possessing child pornography.)

A priest caught groping young men in his bedroom did not have any deep-seated psychological problems, McDonough concluded. He assured a colleague that the misconduct was not "the tip of some awful psycho-sexual iceberg but a previously reinforced pattern that now must be changed."

'You're a priest forever'

Jennifer Haselberger, who would later expose the archdiocese's secrets, was working for the Diocese of Crookston in 2006 when she first encountered McDonough's approach.

Crookston Bishop Victor Balke had asked Haselberger to find the Rev. Gerald Foley and tell him that the pope had dismissed him from the priesthood, she said. Foley had been accused of sexual contact with adult women and at least one teenage girl, according to a 2005 letter by McDonough.

Haselberger was surprised to find Foley working in the Twin Cities archdiocese, in apparent violation of the Charter. She organized a meeting with Foley and McDonough at the St. Paul chancery.

Haselberger arrived early so she could review the paperwork with McDonough. She showed him the Vatican decree that dismissed Foley from the priesthood.

Foley "should be given the opportunity to review it, not that I need to tell you this," Haselberger said. "You've probably been through this before."

McDonough looked confused. "Actually, can I take a look at this?" he said, pointing to the decree. "Because it's the first time I've seen one."

Haselberger was baffled. She had assumed that the Twin Cities archdiocese would have asked the Vatican to dismiss many offenders in the four years after the Charter. How was it possible that McDonough had never seen the paperwork?

In private memos, McDonough admitted that he never really understood how to follow the Charter. "Unfortunately, I was prevented by a snowstorm from attending the special training," he wrote in 2004.

When a deputy at the Archdiocese of Boston mentioned that the Vatican had ordered bishops to send abuse cases to Rome, McDonough was skeptical. "This strikes me as a rather odd conclusion," he wrote.

At the chancery, Haselberger didn't have time to dwell on McDonough's unfamiliarity with the process. She wanted to make sure Foley understood that he had committed grave sins that required a serious penalty.

"You are a priest forever / according to the order of Melchizedek." Hebrews 7:17

But when Foley walked in, McDonough took over. He explained that an "external decision" had been made to remove him from the priesthood.

Then McDonough leaned in, locked eyes with Foley, and placed his hand over his chest.

"You're a priest forever in here," he said.

He didn't mention the victims. Haselberger left the meeting in disgust.

Betrayal of victims

McDonough also met with dozens of victims who came forward after the Boston scandal broke. Devout Catholics who sought counseling from the church didn't realize that McDonough was a key player in the cover-up.

Victims described McDonough as deeply pained by the stories. Sometimes, he wept.

Privately, McDonough took note of details that could be used to defend the archdiocese in a lawsuit.

After a series of meetings in 2004 with a man who said he had been sexually abused as a child by the Rev. Jerome Kern, McDonough passed along critical information to Flynn.

He wrote that the man had confided "that he had always remembered the harm that he believes Kern did to him and that he has been 'wrestling with this for thirty years.'

"My guess is that our lawyers would tell us that that sort of an admission would prevent [the man] from ever successfully bringing a lawsuit if there is any kind of statute of limitations on such a suit at all," McDonough wrote.

"I mention this both so that we not be offended by [the man's] emotionally overwrought threats but also so that we recognize that he may have no recourse for help other than what we voluntarily offer to him."

McDonough also maneuvered victims into accepting low financial settlements.

In one case, McDonough went out to dinner with a man who claimed he was sexually exploited by a priest at the St. Paul Seminary. He had already rejected a $5,000 settlement offer from McDonough.

Over dinner, McDonough offered sympathy. He admitted that he had found the priest "creepy" and expressed regret for the man's suffering.

Back at the office, McDonough proposed a strategy to Flynn: "My recommendation is that we would offer him financial help of about $15,000. That way the negotiation moves up from what I previously offered but is still smaller than what he asked for initially by fifty times."

Three weeks later, McDonough sent the man a letter: "After our meeting, I spoke with both Archbishop Flynn and with our chancellor, William Fallon. Although the chancellor, as our chief legal officer, recommended a lower number, Archbishop Flynn asked me to suggest that we make a further gift to you of $15,000, reflecting our acknowledgement of the pain that you experience and that you and I discussed."

The man, who asked not to be named, confirmed to MPR News that he accepted a settlement for about $20,000.

Haunted by a decades-old attack

Some victims couldn't be brushed aside as easily.

Tom Mahowald went to McDonough in 2002 to talk about how he had been sexually abused when he was 11 years old.

Mahowald, then 52, had served as an altar boy for the Rev. Patrick Ryan at Guardian Angels Church in Hastings. One day after Mass in 1961, Ryan asked him to help move some heavy boxes in the church basement.

The priest shut the basement door and grabbed him from behind. "God wants you to do this for me," he whispered into the boy's ear.

Then he pulled down Mahowald's pants and raped him.

Mahowald fought back. As he screamed for help, the priest crushed the boy's testicles with his hand.

A week later, he reported the abuse to his fifth-grade teacher, who told him to talk to the principal. Another priest met with Mahowald during recess and urged him not to call the police.

"All the boys and girls are going to know what happened to you," the priest said. "You don't want that to happen."

Mahowald persisted. He told his parents about the abuse, and testified before a church board. Mahowald's parents believed him. The board did not. No one contacted police or removed Ryan from ministry. The priest died four years later.

Mahowald later underwent three surgeries to try to repair the damage to his testicles. He has been unable to father children.

He wasn't looking for a financial settlement when he approached McDonough in 2002. He just wanted to tell his story. At first, the archdiocese surprised him with its generosity. It covered his therapy bills, sent him to a 10-day retreat in Kentucky for victims of clergy sexual abuse, and even paid his health insurance premiums.

In 2004, Mahowald was so impressed by the archdiocese's response that he asked to interview McDonough on video.