St. Paul priest's suspected child pornography never turned over to police, 'disposed of'

Emily Gurnon
Pioneer Press
November 13, 2014

When two employees at St. Mary's church in downtown St. Paul found what they believed was child pornography in the Rev. Donald J. Dummer's living quarters in 1997, they brought the material to an archdiocese official.

Over the next five years, the circle of church leaders made aware of the material grew. It included then-Vicar General Kevin McDonough, then-Archbishop Harry Flynn, and the Rev. Joseph Hitpas, Dummer's superior in the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the order to which he belonged.

It even reached the apostolic nuncio in Washington, D.C., Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, the Vatican's ambassador to the United States.

But the potentially criminal material was never turned over to law enforcement. Instead, Hitpas told Flynn in 2002, "I will dispose of the tapes."

The details of the events involving the former Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis priest were released Thursday by attorney Jeff Anderson of St. Paul, who obtained it through a lawsuit.

A message left for Dummer, now 77 and living in an oblates residence in Tewksbury, Mass., was returned by the residence's administrator, David Arthur, who referred a reporter to the oblates headquarters in Washington, D.C. Messages left there were not immediately returned.

Bishop Andrew Cozzens of the archdiocese said in a written statement Thursday that Dummer's file was turned over to police investigators in November 2013.