Other Christian institutions & contexts Catholic Manchester, NH, USA · 2002

Diocese of Manchester: child-endangerment evidence resolved through a monitored nonprosecution agreement

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Disposition and response

Material that narrows or disputes the record

Appellate history

This matter ended through a court-approved nonprosecution agreement, not a criminal judgment. The agreement preserved the state's ability to prosecute individual clergy for abuse where permitted by law.

Record class

Institutional event

Evidence status

Closed without charge

Authority role

diocesan officials assigning clergy to ministry, priests with access to minors, diocesan safeguarding and reporting authorities

Organization

Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The agreement arose from the diocese's institutional response to sexual abuse by clergy and expressly acknowledged that decisions assigning priests who had abused minors back to ministry resulted in additional children being victimized. Clerical ministry and diocesan assignment authority created and renewed the access at issue.

Pastoral or clerical authority
Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2002-12-10 · court-approved agreement concluding grand-jury matter No. 02-S-1154

Hillsborough County Superior Court, Northern District, New Hampshire. The diocese acknowledged that the state possessed evidence likely to sustain a child-endangerment conviction. In exchange for reporting, removal, training, disclosure and five years of independent audit obligations, the attorney general agreed not to prosecute the diocese or its agents for their past handling of clergy-abuse allegations.
2005-09-20 · agreement-enforcement opinion

Hillsborough County Superior Court, Northern District, New Hampshire. The court described the agreement, the acknowledged evidence and the audit provision while resolving a dispute about the audit process.

Documented coercion mechanisms

reassignment of priests known to have abused minors
institutional handling outside law enforcement
clerical access to children
failure to protect minors from known risk

Cited record

Sources

filed agreement reproduction nonprosecution agreement State of New Hampshire and Roman Catholic Bishop of Manchester, Agreement, In re Grand Jury Proceedings, No. 02-S-1154 (Hillsborough Cnty. Super. Ct. approved Dec. 10, 2002), official filing reproduced by BishopAccountability.org.: The filed agreement records the acknowledged child-endangerment evidence, nonprosecution terms, reporting and removal duties, disclosure provisions and five-year external audit requirement.
state court opinion reproduction agreement enforcement opinion New Hampshire Superior Court, In re Grand Jury Proceedings, No. 02-S-1154 (Sept. 20, 2005).: The published court opinion confirms the court's approval date, the diocese's acknowledgement that the state held evidence likely to sustain a conviction, and the agreement's reporting, training and audit structure.
official compliance audit agreement monitoring KPMG LLP, Diocese of Manchester compliance report to the New Hampshire Attorney General (May 4, 2007).: The official state-hosted audit report documents the compliance-monitoring process created by the 2002 agreement.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://www.bishop-accountability.org/resources/resource-files/reports/NewHampshireAgreement.pdf Corpus classification: filed-agreement-reproduction; evidentiary role: nonprosecution-agreement. SHA-256 9bd376c3f13dc2855141006e85ef7e424054ac905dbace18db1f71c2ba547640
Retrieval: 2026-07-27 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://law.justia.com/cases/new-hampshire/superior-court/2005/02-s-1154-4.html Corpus classification: state-court-opinion-reproduction; evidentiary role: agreement-enforcement-opinion.
Retrieval: 2026-07-27 · Retrieval failed; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://mm.nh.gov/files/uploads/doj/remote-docs/20070504-diocese-compliance-report.pdf Corpus classification: official-compliance-audit; evidentiary role: agreement-monitoring.
Retrieval: 2026-07-27 · Retrieval failed; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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