Religion

Archdiocesan officials have fought in the past to keep the list secret, but changed their position in response to an MPR News investigation that found that church leaders protected a priest who admitted to sexually abusing boys on an American Indian reservation and did not disclose his abuse to the police or the public. Archbishop John Nienstedt announced on Nov. 11 that he would begin releasing the names of priests with substantiated allegations of child sexual abuse against them in November if he obtained a judge's permission.

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The battle over the list began in 2004, when the archdiocese told researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice that it knew of 33 priests accused of sexually abusing children. The archdiocese did not provide the names of the priests. Researchers used the information from the archdiocese and other dioceses around the country to study the prevalence of clergy sexual abuse.

In 2009, victims' attorneys Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan asked a judge to order that the names of the 33 priests be released. Ramsey County Judge Gregg Johnson ordered the archdiocese to provide the information to the attorneys as part of a specific lawsuit but immediately placed the list under seal. It has remained under seal since then, which means it could not be released to the public -- and victims' attorneys cannot reveal its contents -- without a judge's order to unseal it.