3 Priests on `Stand-By' in Wis. Trial

Chief Criminal Court Judge Thomas R. Fitzgerald on Tuesdayordered three Chicago priests to be on "stand-by" as possible state'switnesses in the upcoming Wisconsin trial of the Rev. Norbert Maday.

Fitzgerald said the priests did not have to be in Oshkosh, Wis.,when the trial starts Monday, as Wisconsin prosecutors had requested.Prosectors said they would call the priests to testify only if Madaytakes the stand.

Archdiocese attorney Carrie Huff had complained that WinnebagoCounty district attorney Joseph Paulus only wanted "the priests upthere for a media show" because the trial will be broadcastnationally on television.

The archdiocese also turned over subpoenaed records soFitzgerald could determine whether they are "material," or relevant,to the trial. Fitzgerald will announce his decision Friday.

If he decides the records are relevant, he will then decidewhether a court in Wisconsin or Illinois should hear archdiocesearguments that the documents are shielded from prosecutors by"pastoral privilege."

The archdiocese would like Fitzgerald to apply his Nov. 16ruling in an unrelated case. In that decision, Fitzgerald said theprivilege allows the archdiocese to withhold documents subpoenaed bythe Cook County state's attorney in an investigation of sexualmisconduct by priests. The Wisconsin prosecutors say their state'spastoral privilege laws are not as broad.

Maday, 54, the former pastor of Our Lady of the Ridge parish inChicago Ridge, is charged in the sexual assault of two 14-year-oldaltar boys during a 1986 religious outing to Wisconsin.

Fitzgerald is handling the Wisconsin prosecutors' summonsbecause the law requires a local judge's certification ofout-of-state subpoenas. Paulus and Deputy District Attorney VincentBiskupic were seeking certified summonses for 16 Cook Countyresidents, including the priests, to testify.

Biskupic said the priests would only be called to testify aboutother incidents of sexual abuse if Maday takes the stand.

Fitzgerald issued summonses to 10 other men to appear aswitnesses in Wisconsin, but delayed until Friday deciding whether afourth priest, the Rev. Jerry Duggan, who suffered a stroke in July,must travel to Wisconsin to testify.

Prosecutors had also subpoenaed Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, asthe keeper of archdiocese records, to supply a list of altar boys atthe parishes in which Maday served since 1964. Huff said thearchdiocese did not keep such records.

Maday, who is free on $15,000 bond posted by the ChicagoArchdiocese, was removed last spring from his most recent post withSt. Jude the Apostle Parish in South Holland.