Michael Trainor

Former Father Michael Trainor faces new complaint
December 31, 2002

New allegations of sexual abuse of a minor have been lodged against a former Catholic priest who worked in several parishes in the Madison Diocese.

An alleged victim of the Rev. Michael Trainor disclosed to Madison Diocese officials in November, 2002, an incident that reportedly occurred in 1980 while Trainor was a priest at St. Henry's Parish.

In a series of civil lawsuits against the Madison Diocese, at least a dozen accusers said Trainor abused them as boys while working in Madison area parishes and at the former Holy Name Seminary. The new accuser is not among victims brought to the diocese's attention in the past.

Madison Diocese paid $1.6 million to sex abuse victims

Wisconsin State Journal, 02/18/2003

The Madison Catholic Diocese has paid out $1.6 million over the past two decades to 19 victims of sexual abuse, according to Bishop William Bullock.

He said the diocese has knowledge of four diocesan priests who have been subject to "documented and substantial allegations of sexual abuse."

They are Lawrence Trainor, Michael Trainor, Curtiss Alvarez and Archie Adams. None of them is currently a priest.

The diocese is also reviewing allegations of sexual abuse lodged last summer against the Rev. Kenneth Klubertanz, former pastor of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Lodi. Klubertanz is currently on administrative leave but he is still a priest.

Bullock said none of the money paid to victims of the priests came from the Diocesan Services Appeal or from any other restricted funds. Of the $1.6 million, about $900,000 came from insurers and $700,000 came from the Diocesan Self-Insurance Program, he said.

Lawrence Trainor was ordained in 1972 and was removed from ministry in 1989. Michael Trainor was ordained in 1964 and removed from ministry in 1984. Alvarez was ordained in 1976 and removed from ministry in 1985 and Adams was ordained in 1955 and removed in 1993, according to diocesan spokesman Bill Brophy.

Each of the priests served several area parishes before being removed. Though the diocese did not release those assignments, records show that Michael Trainor was reassigned from St. Henry's Catholic Church in Waterloo [sic] to St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Madison in 1982.

Lawrence Trainor was transferred from St. Peter's Catholic Church in Madison to St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Muscoda in 1979.

Adams was transferred from St. Mary of the Nativity Catholic Church in Marshall to St. Mary's Catholic Church in Mineral Point, in 1987.

And Alvarez was transferred from Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church in Beloit to St. Dennis Catholic Church in Madison in 1984.

All of the transfers were approved by the late Bishop Cletus O'Donnell. There is no public information to show whether the alleged abuses occurred in any of these parishes or whether they occurred in other congregations.

Klubertanz, ordained in 1968, was put on administrative leave last summer after two men said he had molested them in the 1970s.

In addition, the Rev. Robert DeCock, former associate pastor of St. Paul's University Catholic Center, was removed from his position last December after being accused of improper advances against a young woman. The Rev. Peter Clavere Arnoue left his position at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Hollandale after similar accusations.

Neither DeCock, a member of the Schoenstatt Order, nor Arnoue, a priest of the Owere, Nigeria, Diocese are members of the Madison Catholic Diocese but they did work here with Bullock's permission.