Fabian Bruskewitz

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

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 practices of anal sex by gay men as a degeneration and a perversion that is "repulsive to normal human beings".

In 2015 Bruskewitz issued a public letter urging Catholic women not to engage in yoga. He argued that yoga has its root in Hinduism, and was thus “incompatible to Christianity.”

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

Call to Action appealed to Rome against Bruskewitz's decree, but in 2006 the Congregation for Bishops upheld his action. Bruskewitz wrote in a letter to Call to Action at the time of the excommunications that "the difference between a Protestant and a dissenting Catholic is that a Protestant has integrity." Regis Scanlon considered that the controversy created by Bruskewitz's decree may have been one of the factors that led Cardinal Joseph Bernardin to initiate without success his "Catholic Common Ground Project" to bring American Catholic factions together, based on the belief, which Scanlon decried, that "limited and occasional dissent" from the magisterium of the Church was "legitimate".

A 2005 report by the Catholic News Agency stated that the Diocese of Lincoln 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 discussing the Diocese of Lincoln, "Fidelity to the magisterium and traditional spirituality are strikingly manifest." Bruskewitz noted that

In 2004, Bruskewitz stated that he would deny the eucharist to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights, including 2004 presidential candidate and then Senator John Kerry. In 2005, Bruskewitz voted to approve a USCCB resolution calling for an end to the practice of capital punishment. However, he said, "One can disagree with the bishops' teaching about the death penalty and still present himself for holy Communion, but one cannot disagree with a teaching about abortion and euthanasia and present himself for holy Communion."

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 stated that Kalin was not following the ban.

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 LGBT children through the pastoral document, "All our children". He called the document a “Calamity and frightening disaster” and advised other Catholics to ignore or oppose it.

Bruskewitz gained national attention in 1996 for decreeing automatic excommunication on Catholics in the Diocese of Lincoln 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."

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 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 to the rank of chaplain of his holiness in 1976, becoming an honorary prelate of his holiness in 1980. That same year, Bruskewitz became pastor of St. Bernard Parish in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

Bruskewitz was ordained to the priesthood 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 believes that most sexual abuse by Catholic priests is against adolescent boys and rooted in "society's acceptance of homosexuality". He has emphasized therefore that gay men should never be permitted into the priesthood because it encourages temptation as "priests are regularly in close proximity with children and young men". He failed 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 John Jay College of Criminal Justice was instead commissioned by the USCCB to study sexual abuse by priests. Their most recent report is The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010.

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. He is known for often taking conservative stands on social issues.

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