Supreme Court denies appeal to throw out clergy sex abuse lawsuit

Published: 2004-06-21

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The U.S. Supreme Court June 21 summarily rejected an appeal seeking dismissal of a sexual abuse lawsuit filed in California against the Milwaukee Archdiocese. Archdiocesan attorneys had sought reversal of lower court rulings on the case in California. They argued that a California court should not handle cases involving religious institutions in other states and that the priest accused of the abuse was no longer connected to the Milwaukee Archdiocese when the abuse allegedly occurred. The lawsuit involves the late Siegfried F. Widera, a former priest of the Milwaukee Archdiocese who moved to California following a conviction for child molestation in the late 1970s and in 1981 became a priest of the Diocese of Orange, Calif. The Orange Diocese removed him from ministry in 1985. In May 2003 Widera, 62, jumped to his death from a hotel balcony in Mazatlan, Mexico, as police were closing in to detain him for extradition to the United States to face more than 40 charges of child molestation in Wisconsin and California.

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