Here & Now

Josh Kaul on the Clergy and Faith Leader Abuse Initiative

Frederica Freyberg:

In criminal justice news, the Walworth County district attorney this week charged 92-year-old defrocked former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick with sexual assault. The criminal complaint says McCarrick repeatedly sexually abused the victim in the 1970s. The charges stem from a 1977 incident at a Geneva Lake residence. McCarrick also has charges pending in another state and in 2019, Pope Francis defrocked McCarrick for sexually abusing minors and adults. McCarrick is the only U.S. Catholic cardinal ever to be criminally charged with child sex crimes. The Wisconsin charges are the result of a report made to the attorney general’s Clergy and Faith Leader Abuse Initiative. That tip line and online reporting systems started nearly two years ago, and to date has completed 248 reports of abuse. Attorney General Josh Kaul joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Josh Kaul:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So how meaningful are Wisconsin charges against one of the most prominent religious leaders in the Catholic church?

Josh Kaul:

I think it’s an example of the importance of the work that we’re doing. We have asked survivors across the state of Wisconsin to make reports if there’s information that they have certainly involving abuse of which they were victims, but also if anybody has information about institutional response to abuse. And one of the things that’s been so encouraging is that over 200 people have reached out and made reports. That shows me that what we’ve set up through the tip line is a trusted safe place for people to report, and that’s going to lead to accountability in a variety of ways. There are now three cases that have been criminally charged. One of which has resulted in a conviction, but we also want to make sure that we’re connecting victims with services and that we’re providing as full an accounting as possible through our review here.

Frederica Freyberg:

The McCarrick charges were made after a report to this clergy abuse hotline, showing how people are reporting after decades of not telling anyone. What have survivors told your victim services specialists about what prompted them to report?

Josh Kaul:

I think for a lot of survivors, having a safe and trusted place is part of what’s caused them to report. As you said, there are people who, for decades, have not previously reported abuse and there are other people who did report that abuse to trusted people, sometimes church officials, sometimes to law enforcement, and didn’t get the kind of response that they should have. I think — I hope the people have seen how committed we are to conducting a full and thorough review and the number of reports we’ve received and some of the results that we’ve gotten from those reports I think shows how committed we are to this.

Frederica Freyberg:

For those who didn’t report ever until now, what have they said about living in silence all those years?

Josh Kaul:

One of the things we wanted to make sure we were doing through this process is to have a victim centric approach. We knew going in that some of these cases would involve incidents that happened decades ago and would be outside the statute of limitations or even cases where the perpetrator has passed away, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t do important work on behalf survivors. And one of the things we’ve heard is that the process of talking with a victim services specialist who is trained in working with survivors, that that has been a huge benefit to the survivors who have had the opportunity to report and we’ve heard some really compelling stories about how much that’s meant to people in the recovery process.

Frederica Freyberg:

So you have had one conviction in Waushara County and yet the effort is still valuable?

Josh Kaul:

Absolutely. We continue to encourage people to make reports if they have information but we also are continuing to review cases that have been reported to us. We have multi-disciplinary teams that consist of a prosecutor, an investigator and a victim advocate and they’re reviewing each and every report that we receive and figuring out what follow-up can happen and is appropriate and then pursuing that follow-up. That process is going to continue as long as we continue to receive information.

Frederica Freyberg:

Can it be hard to make charges in these cases, particularly the ones that are decades old?

Josh Kaul:

Absolutely. In any case that goes back that far, you’ve got to consider statute of limitations issues and also you’ve got to recognize the fact that witnesses who may have been around may have moved to a different state or even out of the country. That can make it more difficult. It’s always better to investigate and prosecute cases soon after the incidents have happened, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not a lot of value in conducting this review and we’re going to continue pursuing cases as long as we keep getting information.

Frederica Freyberg:

Going all the way back to the beginning, why did you start the Clergy and Faith Leaders Abuse Initiative?

Josh Kaul:

One of my priorities as attorney general has been to strengthen Wisconsin’s response to sexual assault. It’s a crime that historically has had very low percentage of reports made and I don’t think our systemic response has been as strong as it should have been over the decades. We want to fix that. One of the things we’ve done is prioritized cases where perhaps they should have been investigated or prosecuted previously but weren’t and so we’ve worked to ensure there’s never another backlog of untested sexual assault kits that we’ve prosecuted some cases that DNA results were found through the backlog. And likewise with clergy and faith leaders abuse, we know there are cases that weren’t pursued that should have been so we want to make sure we’re getting justice for as many survivors as possible.

Frederica Freyberg:

On another important matter, the U.S. Supreme Court had under consideration the case of whether to block or allow the abortion pill. Why did you sign on to protect its use when, as it stands now, abortion is illegal in Wisconsin?

Josh Kaul:

There are a couple reasons. First, we need to do everything we can to protect reproductive freedom in the state of Wisconsin and we’re pursuing efforts on multiple fronts to restore access to safe and legal abortion. But mifepristone is not only used in abortions, it’s also used in miscarriage management. We don’t want to take any options away from women that are legally valid in the state of Wisconsin if we can protect them. So protecting access to mifepristone helps there, but also we are also advocating in court that the abortion ban is not enforceable and if we win that case, we want to make sure that access to care is as widely available as possible and winning this case would help with that.

Frederica Freyberg:

Do you feel as though you have a good case in the overturning the current abortion law?

Josh Kaul:

I feel really good about our case. There were a series of laws that were passed following Roe v. Wade that regulate lawful abortion. They are fundamentally inconsistent with the idea of the broad 1849 ban and I’m very optimistic that the courts will find that the 1849 law was impliedly repealed which would mean it’s not enforceable and that we go back to basically where we were prior Roe v. Wade being overturned.

Frederica Freyberg:

Josh Kaul, thanks very much.

Josh Kaul:

Thanks for having me.