The boy was about 9 or 10 years old.
As he climbed into bed, he asked the priest a question: Are you going
to molest me, like my relative does when he asks me to spend the night?
What happened that night remained
secret.
The priest, the Rev. Clarence Vavra, stayed in ministry and
served in 16 parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis
before retiring in 2003. He's never been publicly identified as an
abuser.
There are no records of any police reports or lawsuits. No
victims have come forward. Vavra admitted in a May 1995 psychological
evaluation that he had attempted to anally rape the South Dakota boy.
The report was stored in the vicar general's filing cabinet at the
chancery.
Today Vavra lives in a small, gray
home in New Prague, Minn., less than a block from a school. He wouldn't
answer questions when approached by a reporter.
New Prague Area Schools
Superintendent Tim Dittberner said no one notified the school about
Vavra's history of abuse.
If the priest had been a convicted sex
offender, he said, there would've been a community meeting before
authorities decided whether to allow the offender to live so close to a
school.
The archdiocese's handling of Vavra
reveals decades of deception by leaders who promised "zero tolerance"
for sexual abuse. An MPR News investigation has found that three
archbishops — John Roach, Harry Flynn and John Nienstedt — failed to
report Vavra to authorities or warn the public. Roach transferred Vavra
11 times in 20 years.
Flynn overlooked Vavra's alleged sexual interest
in a murderer and in a convicted child rapist, and gave the priest
payments above his pension in exchange for agreeing to retire early.
Nienstedt stopped the payments, but Vavra continues to live a quiet life
in a neighborhood full of children.
Nienstedt told MPR News Saturday
that Vavra admitted in 1995 to sexually abusing several young boys and a
teenager on the Rosebud Indian Reservation.
Vavra also admitted to
"inappropriate sexual contact with other adult males," Nienstedt said,
and received inpatient psychological treatment in 1996.
"Serious errors were made by the archdiocese in dealing with him," Nienstedt said.
"In the spirit of offering him a path to healing and redemption, too
much trust was placed in the hope of remedying Vavra's egregious
behaviors. Not enough effort was made to identify and care for his
victims."
Flynn did not respond to an interview request.
Roach died in 2003.