In one May 29, 2019 exchange, diocesan communication director Mark Dupont asked Rozanski, review board chairman John Hale, and diocesan lawyer John Eagan for guidance on how to respond to questions from a local reporter.
The reporter, writing for The Berkshire Eagle, had asked why Weldon was not listed among the diocese's credibly accused clergy, despite Doe’s allegations against him.
According to the emails, Egan recommended that Dupont tell the reporter, in part: “The Review Board has never found that Bishop Weldon engaged in improper contact with anyone.”
Rozanski replied to the suggestion from Egan, saying “Yes, thank you. This is a good response.”
In an email exchange the next day, Egan appeared to advise against acknowledging that Weldon was present at any of the instances of abuse, and also advised that the diocese’s statement to the reporter “lead with an allegation of abuse in the 1960s and the victim didn’t recover his memories until around 2017 or 2018.”
Doe says he first recovered his memories of the incident in 2013.
Dupont subsequently told the Berkshire Eagle: “You should know that there is NO finding of sexual abuse of any person involving Bishop Weldon — NONE.”
For his part, Dupont told CNA last year that the Velis report “had no finding of any cover-up,” and that “our earliest public responses acknowledged Bishop Weldon was allegedly present where the abuse occurred.”
However, Velis said his findings raise questions about whether there was an attempt to conceal the diocesan investigator’s reports about Bishop Weldon from the review board or Bishop Rozanski. It was not the scope of his investigation to determine responsibility for the apparent deceptive practice or “if and when the reports were switched.”
Rozanski told Velis he was not aware of the specifics of Doe's allegation of abuse by Weldon, and did not know about the different reports about Doe's allegation produced by the diocesan investigator. Rozanski has said he knew that Weldon was accused of being “present during incidents of abuse that occurred.”
In June 2020, following the report’s release, Rozanski apologized for the “chronic mishandling of the case, time and time again, since 2014.”
“At almost every instance, we have failed this courageous man who nonetheless persevered thanks in part to a reliable support network as well to a deep desire for a just response for the terrible abuse which he endured,” the then-archbishop-designate said at a press conference, one year after he commissioned Velis to conduct the investigation.
Weldon is now named on the Springfield diocese website as a “deceased bishop who was found to have credible allegations of abuse.”
Doe is seeking a jury trial, damages, and court costs.
Both the Archdiocese of St. Louis and the Diocese of Springfield have, to other publications, declined to comment on pending cases.
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