The list: Archdiocese names priests credibly accused of sexual abuse

By Sasha Aslanian, Madeleine Baran Tom Scheck and Laura Yuen , Minnesota Public Radio

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has released the names of 30 priests it believes sexually abused children between 1950 and 2013.

• Related: Archdiocese's list shows it kept secret seven priests credibly accused of sexually abusing children

The archdiocese also released the names of four other priests who had been included on an earlier list, but church officials now say those four should not have been included. A Ramsey County judge ordered the archdiocese Monday to release a list of 33 priests that had been sealed since 2009.

• MPR News investigation: Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis under scrutiny

Seven of the priests named were not previously known to the public as accused abusers. Five of those seven are still living. About one-third of the priests on the list are dead.

The accused priests have served at nearly half — 92, in total — of the 188 parishes in the archdiocese, according to an email sent to priests by vicar general Rev. Charles Lachowitzer, the archbishop's top deputy.

The disclosure comes three days after Ramsey County Judge John Van de North ordered the archdiocese to release the names of all the priests on a sealed list of clergy with credible allegations of child sexual abuse against them. The 33 names had been disclosed to attorneys in a 2009 clergy sexual abuse lawsuit, but a judge ordered they remain private.

The number of names on the original list — 33 in total — originated in 2004 when the Rev. Kevin McDonough, then second in command at the archdiocese, told researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice that 33 priests in the archdiocese were "known to have credible allegations of the abuse of minors." The John Jay group had been commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to study clergy sexual abuse in the United States.

A note about the list

This list of priests who have been "credibly accused" is just that: A list. The document released by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis contains little or no information about crimes, accusations, legal dispositions or settlements. Nor does the archdiocese say what constitutes a "credible accusation." MPR News has done what it could to supplement the list with information from church documents, media reports and the public record.