Jim Collar
Post Crescent
Appleton, WI
July 13, 2012
The Catholic Diocese of Green Bay says its First Amendment rights protect it from liability in a civil lawsuit filed by two childhood victims of clergy sex abuse.
Brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield were awarded $700,000 in May by an Outagamie County Court that found the diocese committed civil fraud. The brothers claimed the diocese knew of the Rev. John Feeney’s illicit sexual history when it installed him as a priest at Freedom’s St. Nicholas Church and misrepresented him as safe while knowing he was a danger to children.
The Merryfields, then 12 and 14, were molested by Feeney in 1978. Feeney was sentenced to prison in 2004 for the assaults.
Sarah Fry Bruch, an attorney for the diocese, said the jury verdict should be overturned, arguing the court is constitutionally barred from reading any meaning into Feeney’s assignment to a pastoral role. The Merryfields didn’t show evidence the diocese represented Feeney as safe.
“Nor could they, as the assignment of a priest is a canonical act which the civil courts may not evaluate or explain,” she wrote. The First Amendment gives broad latitude to religious organizations in the conduct of their internal affairs.
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Granting the diocese immunity from Wisconsin law by finding in its favor “would raise grave Establishment Clause issues by actually advancing religion,” he wrote.
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from establishing a national religion or giving preference to one over another.
The First Amendment argument was one of several made by the diocese in a 40-page document asking for relief from the court.
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