Breaking: New recordings of Wisconsin DOJ calls with Nate’s Mission

Dear friends,

This morning, Nate’s Mission released a new video depicting our advocacy surrounding Attorney General Kaul’s investigation into clergy sexual abuse, including the process leading up to the announcement and our response to the investigation’s progress. The video includes audio recordings from several calls between Kaul's administration and email messages from the DOJ to survivors.

These audio recordings appear to demonstrate false promises made to survivors surrounding resources allotted to the investigation and the DOJ's reticence to work with Church documents containing potential criminal evidence due to the "politically-charged" Supreme Court and the Church's "aggressive attorneys."

We didn’t record our calls with the Attorney General’s office to create a “gotcha” moment for Josh Kaul and his staff. We took no joy in releasing this to the media and public today. In fact, these recordings and the actions of the Wisconsin DOJ are a great source of pain for us, personally as survivors and advocates, for our organization, and for all victims of clergy abuse who expected more from Attorney General Kaul and his investigation. We agonized over this decision and ultimately chose to share this because Wisconsin survivors deserve to know it.

The history of child sex abuse in the Church sadly shows that those who are charged with the public duty to protect children far too often protect the Church instead, which is why so few known clergy offenders and those who covered up these crimes have ever been prosecuted. The question now is: has this changed? Are the bishops of Wisconsin still more powerful than the Attorney General and other elected law enforcement officials? So far the answer seems to be “yes.” And this answer is dangerous for every child in Wisconsin, not just Catholic ones.  

Nate's Mission is the only survivor-led organization in Wisconsin challenging the Attorney General to hold the Church accountable for their crimes against the state's children. Please join us in continuing to fight for a justice-centered investigation into clergy abuse.

Sincerely,

The Nate's Mission Team