Spring ’24 Webinar II
Whose Stories are They?
April 10, 2024
In this webinar, four experts–an archivist, a canon lawyer, a survivors’ attorney, and an historian– engage in an interdisciplinary conversation about transparency, control, and the volatility of sexual abuse archives. Springing from a recent legal settlement that promised an Abuse Documents Archive in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, this webinar asks questions about the meanings, limits, and promise of “transparency” in the effort to understand and ameliorate the Catholic clergy abuse crisis.
Panelists
Levi Monagle is an attorney and advocate for survivors of sexual abuse in religious and carceral settings. He obtained his undergraduate degree and his law degree from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He joined the Law Offices of Brad D. Hall as a law clerk in 2013, was employed as an attorney with the firm in 2014, and became a partner at the firm in 2019. In 2022, Levi joined forces with best friends Jason Wallace and Shayne Huffman to form the law firm of Huffman Wallace & Monagle LLC. Throughout his career, Levi has represented hundreds of victims of sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, the Diocese of Las Cruces, the Diocese of El Paso, the Diocese of Gallup, and other non-Catholic religious settings. He has served as the President of the Board of Directors of the Rape Crisis Center of Central New Mexico, as Board Chair for Common Cause New Mexico and a coalition attorney for the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund.
Terence McKiernan is the president of BishopAccountability.org, an archive and research organization devoted to documenting and understanding the Catholic clergy abuse problem. He was trained in classics and art history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Bristol in England. Terry worked in academic publishing and consulting before he founded BishopAccountability.org in 2003. He was the archivist and one of the leaders of the Cushwa Center’s Gender, Sex, and Power project. Terry and BishopAccountability.org received the 2023 Distinguished Service Award from the American Catholic Historical Association.
Jennifer Haselberger is a canon lawyer with experience in the United States and internationally. Dr. Haselberger has been Judge on the Metropolitan Tribunal of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Director of the Tribunal of the Diocese of Crookston, as well as Director of the Diocesan Safe Environment Program. After serving as the Bishop’s Delegate for Canonical Affairs in the Diocese of Fargo, Dr. Haselberger returned to the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis to serve as Chancellor for Canonical Affairs, a position she held until resigning in April of 2013 in protest of the Archdiocese’s handling of accusations of clergy sexual abuse. In 2013 she established Canonical Consultation and Services, LLC.
Kathleen Holscher is associate professor of Religious Studies and American Studies, and holds the endowed chair in Roman Catholic studies, at the University of New Mexico. She is interested in the relationship of Catholicism to formations of empire, particularly US settler colonialism. Her first book was Religious Lessons: Catholic Sisters, Public Education and the Law in Midcentury New Mexico (Oxford University Press, 2012). Her recent work has dealt especially with Catholic clerical sexual abuse in the context of US “Indian missions”; she has published longer academic pieces on this, as well as pieces online for journals like the National Catholic Reporter and The Revealer. Along with Dr. Jack Downey (University of Rochester), Dr. Holscher created “Desolate Country,” an interactive digital mapping project that traces the movements of Catholic priests credibly accused of sexual abuse to missions and through Native lands. Dr. Holscher is currently at work co-writing a book on Catholic horror.