The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis reportedly pays the salary, health insurance premiums and living expenses for Reverend Gil Gustafson who was convicted for child sex abuse back in 1983.
According to the Star Tribune, in addition to all these payments by the church, Rev. Gustafson is also paid disability by the state.
The church says that in July 2006 Rev. Gustafson was declared “disabled” based on his pedophilia. He collects disability checks on top of his salary from the church as a "consultant."
After Rev. Gustafson admitted he molested Brian Herrity for five years, he was fined $40 and sentenced to six months in jail as well as 10 years of probation in 1983.
However, Rev. Gustafso only spent a few months in jail and was then released to the Catholic Church.
Meanwhile, his victim (Herrity) began a “path of destruction” that included drug abuse and promiscuity, which ended in his death from AIDS at age 28, in 1995.
Herrity's father said he met with Reverend Kevin McDonough to ask for financial help for his son's medical bills and hospice care, but Herrity's father said Rev. McDonough “gave me a list of public social workers.”
Rev. McDonough had far more compassion for Rev. Gustafso, especially after a letter from Archbishop John Roach in 1990.
“I want [Rev. Gustafso] back in a parish,” Archbishop Roach wrote to Rev. McDonough. “He has received and complied with far more treatment than anyone else, and it seems to me he has done it well.”
Reverend Gustafso was given a job to hold mass at a Bloomington monastery for cloistered nuns until 2002, which was when Catholic Church finally adopted a "zero-tolerance policy" for child-molesting priests.
Rev. Gustafson also worked at the Pax Christi Church in Eden Prairie and at the University of St. Thomas, where he was on a panel with a sex abuse victim.
In 2000, Rev. Gustafson was accused of molesting a young girl for five years, beginning in 1977. The girl sued in 2002 and was paid a settlement in 2005, reports BishopAccountability.org.
In 2009, Rev. Gustafso got a job as a “leadership consultant” at the Cristo Rey Jesuit High School.
Rev. David Haschika, the president of the school, knew about Rev. Gustafson’s sex crimes, but added, “As far as I knew, Mr. Gustafson had done everything he could do to straighten out his life and become a good citizen.”
Sources: Star Tribune and BishopAccountability.org