Fabian Bruskewitz

Fabian Wendelin Bruskewitz (born September 6, 1935) is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as bishop of the Diocese of Lincoln in Nebraska, from 1992 to 2012.

A 2021 report by the Nebraska Attorney General cited several instances in which Bruskewitz failed to investigate claims of sexual abuse.

Fabian Bruskewitz was born on September 6, 1935, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

He attended a local parochial school before studying at St. Lawrence Seminary High School in Mount Calvary, Wisconsin and at St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee.

He went to Rome to further his studies at the Pontifical North American College and the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Their report, The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010, was published in 2011.

Bruskewitz was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee by Cardinal Luigi Traglia on July 17, 1960, at the Basilica dei Santi Apostoli in Rome.

Upon his return to the United States, Bruskewitz served as an assistant pastor in parishes near Milwaukee.

He later returned to the Gregorian University for graduate study, earning a Doctor of Dogmatic Theology degree in 1969.

Bruskewitz briefly taught at St. Francis Seminary before returning to Rome for an assignment in the Congregation for Catholic Education in the Roman Curia, where he worked for eleven years.

He was raised by the Vatican to the rank of chaplain of his holiness in 1976, becoming an honorary prelate in 1980.

That same year, Bruskewitz became pastor of St. Bernard Parish in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

On March 24, 1992, Pope John Paul II appointed Bruskewitz as the eighth bishop of the Diocese of Lincoln.

He received his episcopal consecration on May 13, 1992, from Archbishop Daniel E. Sheehan, with Bishops Glennon Flavin and Leo Brust serving as co-consecrators, at the Cathedral of the Risen Christ in Lincoln.

Bruskewitz gained national attention in 1996 for decreeing automatic excommunication on Catholics in the diocese for membership in the following groups.

In his statement, he asserted "Membership in these organizations or groups is always perilous to the Catholic Faith and most often is totally incompatible with the Catholic Faith."

In 1997, Bruskewitz publicly opposed attempts from other bishops within the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to reach out to parents trying to cope with LGBTQ children through the pastoral document, "All our children".

He called the document a “...calamity and frightening disaster...” and advised Catholics to ignore or oppose it.

Bruskewitz believes that most sexual abuse by Catholic priests is against adolescent boys and is rooted in "society's acceptance of homosexuality".

He has emphasized therefore that bishops should never accept gay men into the priesthood because it encourages temptation as "priests are regularly in close proximity with children and young men".

He attempted to persuade the USCCB to commission a study to examine potential links between sexual abuse by priests and allowing gay men into Catholic seminaries.

The USCCB instead commissioned John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City to study sexual abuse by priests.

In 1998, according to a 2021 investigation by Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson, Bruskewitz met with Monsignor Leonard Kalin, the vocations director at the Newman Center at the University of Nebraska.

The diocese had been receiving complaints of sexual harassment and assault by Kalin from seminarians and undergraduates at the university.

In the meeting Kalin admitted having had 50 sexual encounters with other males.

In response, Bruskewitz banned Kalin from dealing with anyone under age 40, but did not report him to authorities or suspend his ministerial privileges.

A later note in Kalin's personal file stated that Kalin was not following the ban.

A 2005 report by the Catholic News Agency stated that the diocese had the highest priest-to-Catholic ratio in the United States.

The article suggested that this was due to Bruskewitz' emphasis on orthodoxy, along with having a seminary in the diocese.

According to one opinion writer, "Fidelity to the magisterium and traditional spirituality are strikingly manifest."

Bruskewitz noted that "'The orthodoxy, conservatism, and enthusiasm of the clergy, both young and old, bear witness to the splendor of the Catholic priesthood in southern Nebraska.'"Under Bruskewitz, the diocese was the only diocese in the United States where female altar servers were not allowed diocese-wide.

Bruskewitz published a book entitled Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz: A Shepherd Speaks.

On September 6, 2010, Bruskewitz submitted his letter of resignation to Pope Benedict XVI, having reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 for bishops.

Benedict XVI accepted his resignation on September 14, 2012, and appointed Bishop James D. Conley as his successor.

In 2021, the Nebraska Attorney General report on sexual abuse by priests in Nebraska highlighted several instances in which Bruskewitz failed to follow canon law in handling allegations:

In 2016, Bruskewitz described the practice of anal sex by gay men as a degeneration and a perversion that is "repulsive to normal human beings".

Bruskewitz has been occasionally at odds with the USCCB For example, he rejected an audit by the USCCB National Review Board of his plans to implement national guidelines on sex-abuse programs, making reference to both the Review Board and Patricia O'Donnell Ewers, the former president of Pace University:

"Some woman named Patricia O'Donnell Ewers, who is the chair of something called 'A National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People,' has said that her board 'calls for strong fraternal correction of the Diocese of Lincoln.' The Diocese of Lincoln has nothing to be corrected for, since the Diocese of Lincoln is and has always been in full compliance with all laws of the Catholic Church and with all civil laws...The Diocese of Lincoln does not see any reason for the existence of Ewers and her organization."

The issue brought the diocese to national attention.

Bruskewitz was the only one of 195 bishops who refused to sign the USCCB Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. He suggested that the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic church is linked to clerical dissent from Catholic sexual ethics more broadly dating to dissent from the papal encyclical, Humanae Vitae", which reaffirmed Catholic teaching on artificial birth control.