Russ Feingold's likely challenger is plastic mogul Ron Johnson. Johnson is a neophyte in the public service arena with one exception: For years he has served on the Green Bay Diocese's Finance Council.
In that capacity, he has the lobbied Wisconsin legislature on behalf of The Church, including, earlier this year when he urged the Wisconsin Senate to kill a bill that would have, for purposes of law suits, lengthened the statute of limitations for sexual crimes committed against children. This, of course, would have brought all kinds of head aches for Johnson and the rest of the Green Bay Diocese Finance Council.
Why? According to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), "Green Bay diocese has one of the highest concentrations of clerical offenders in the country" -- a situation made exponentially worse by the dioces's decades-old practice of reassigning pedophile priests instead of arresting them.
In addition, in an email yesterday, SNAP national director David Clohessy said, "Green Bay has a disproportionately high percent of accused predator priests who church officials claim are innocent."
Although three different Bishop's have served the Diocese in the last ten years, Auxillary Bishop Robert Morneau has been around in his current role since 1978. It has been well-documented that Morneau was the point-man for dealing with sex abuse cases within the diocese and has been at the center of numerous sex abuse cases where he and the diocese were made aware of a pedophile priest and then re-assigned the priest instead of having them arrestred.
Morneau also serves as head of the Finance Council, which includes Ron Johonson as one of his underlings. The Finance Council plays a key role in sex abuse cases because it is the one that ultimately settles out of court sex abuse claims. Earlier this year, Johnson lobbied the Wisconsin Senate to not pass a bill that would ease the statute of limitations requirements of sex abuse claims and would have meant that the Finance Council would have to answer more claims.
Morneau has not acted alone-- he has been under the direction of some of The Church's worst handlers of the sex abuse scandal. With such a predicament, one would think that The Church would send in someone to clean it up and reform it. Instead, in 2008, they sent in David Ricken from Wyoming, who for nearly his entire time in Wyoming, protected and shielded the retired Wyoming diocese Bishop Joseph Hart from numerous allegations that he sexually assualted young boys. In 2008, months after Ricken had left for Green Bay, The Church reached a ten million dollar settlement with Hart's victims, apologized for Hart's actions, and agreed to have Hart defrocked.
And the Green Bay diocese still has former Bishop Robert Banks around as Bishop Emeritus. This is the same Robert Banks that retired under intense public pressure in 2003, amidst allegations that he reassigned instead of arrested numerous priests in Green Bay and at has previous post as chief adminstrator of the Boston Diocese. In a report by the Massachusetts Attorney General on Robert Banks during his tenure at the Boston Diocese, they said he "...clearly preferred to keep priests that sexually molested children in pastoral ministry and generally refreained from restricting their ministrerial duties..." and "...failed to report allegations of clergy sexual abuse to law enforcement..."
Between Banks and Ricken, the Green Bay diocese had David Zubik, who is now the Bishop of the Pittsburgh Diocese. According to SNAP, during Zubik's tenure, Zubik anounced that the diocese had 51 incidents of sex abuse, but refused to release any information about the abusers. In 2008, SNAP alleged that the Green Bay Diocese "continues to house and hide in undisclosed locations an unknown number of clergy who have molested children."
Since Ricken has been at the Green Bay Diocese, he has repeatedly clashed with SNAP over his lack of inaction in dealing with the sex abuse problem in The Church. According to SNAP, Auxiliary Bishop Robert Morneau's handling of abuse allegations has continued to be woefully inadequate. Morneau was involved in protecting former priest John Patrick Feeney, who was convicted in 2003 for sexually assaulting two adolescent brothers 30 years ago, but still remains as the second-highest position in the Green Bay Diocese and is still plays a leading role in dealing with sex-abuse cases as head of the Finance Council. SNAP says, "Bishop Morneau who was involved in cases of cover up in the past, that's one of our concerns. What's happening with him? He's in the documents - Feeney documents, what's going on?"
A 2002, Appleton Post-Crescent article, entitled, "Public Records Indicate Pattern By Diocese," examines Morneau's role in covering-up a pedophile priest in Oshkosh-- where Ron Johnson has resided since the 1970s. According to the article, Rev. Eugene Schmidt repeatedly raped a 13 year old girl from 1968 to 1972 while he was a priest at Winneconne, assaulted her with a broom stick, made her drink from a dog bowl, and took her to Green Bay strip clubs. The Green Bay diocese received many complaints about the priest and the girl during the time of the abuse, but did nothing.
In 1982, the victim sent a letter to the Green Bay bishop detailing Schmidt's abuse. At the time of the letter, Schmidt was the priest at St. Vincent's Catholic Church in Oshkosh-- a post he would hold until 1989. The diocese responded by facilitating a meeting between Schmidt and the victim-- a meeting in which Scmidt did not deny the allegations. The victim then wrote to the Milwaukee diocese for help, saying, "I cannot escape the feeling that the bureaucracy of the church has placed its representatives above the laws of man."
A 1986 memo between Morneau and other Green Bay diocese officials outlines "care of claimant," referring to paying the victim's living expenses. . In 1992, the victim filed a civil lawsuit against the priest and the diocese.
The article also documents how the diocese protected another area Oshkosh priest- Rev. Robert Schneider.
There has been a continuous very public stream of proof from SNAP and others that the Green Bay Diocese continues to mishandle the sex abuse problem in the diocese and has continued to put thousands of Wisconsin children in harm's way-- and all of this has gone on for the entire time Johnson has served on the Finance Council.
The questions for Johnson and his deep involvement with the diocese are numerous:
When the reports began to surface that the Green Bay Diocese reassigned instead of arrested pedophile priests, why didn't Johnson do something through his position of the Finance Council to insure that pedophile priests were being kept away from children?
Why didn't Ron Johnson demand the church to release the names of the 51 priests that they say sexually assaulted children?
Ron Johnson says that the pedophiles should be arrested, but SNAP says the Green Bay Docese is still "continuing to hide clergy that have molested children"-- why didn't Ron Johnson do anything to bring those child molesters to justice or at least release theire whereabouts so communities can be safe? Also, what about all the sex abuse cases Johnson helped settle as part of the Finance Council? Why weren't the priests brought to justice instead of being hid away within the diocese?
All and all, given all that has been very publicly known about the diocese for the last 10 years, why did Johnson choose to be part of the senior leadership of such a diocese and why would he choose to work directly under one of the country's worst offenders in the sexual abuse scandal?
Given that he knows all of the horrors faced by victims of sex abuse through his work in settling sex abuse law suits, why would he fight to prevent children, that were sexually assaulted by priests, from being compensated?
Given that the Green Bay Diocese has one of the nation's worst records in dealing with sex abuse victims, shouldn't he and the diocese being doing MORE, not LESS, for the victims?