Church Seeks Legal Costs From Priest Abuse Accuser

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO/AP) -- For the second time in a week, a Minnesota Catholic bishop filed a lawsuit asking an alleged victim of sexual abuse to pay the thousands it cost the church in defense costs.

On Thursday, Winona Bishop John Quinn said the church was seeking $68,000.

That follows less than a week after Minneapolis-St. Paul Archbishop John Nienstedt asked for $64,000 in legal expenses from a man who unsuccessfully sued the church over allegations of sexual abuse by a priest.

Nienstedt later withdrew the effort, but leaders of a support group called the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said it was only "postponed" and the alleged victim's attorney received formal court papers from Quinn making the same financial demand.

SNAP said that means the total sought by church staffers is $132,000.

The legal motion stems from the case of a man, Jim Keenan, who sued the archdiocese in 2006 alleging he was abused in the early 1980s by Thomas Adamson, who was defrocked in 1984. Keenan won, but lost on appeal.

The archdiocese called its effort to recover legal costs routine, but advocates for abuse victims called it callous.