Advocates for clergy sex abuse survivors want priest added to all Chicago-area dioceses’ predator clergy lists
Rev. Richard McGrath’s name belongs on lists of abusers kept by all Catholic dioceses where he worked, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said.
The Rev. Richard McGrath is pictured when he was president of Providence Catholic High School in New Lenox.
Sun-Times file
After being secretive for years, the Augustinian Catholic order has promised to publish early in 2024 a list of priests credibly accused of abuse.
On Thursday, an advocacy group called for the Rev. Richard J. McGrath, a priest accused of child sex abuse, to also be placed on predator priest lists kept by all Chicago-area dioceses where he worked.
At a news conference outside the Hyde Park friary where McGrath once lived, clergy sex abuse survivor advocates demanded that his name also be added to the lists of the Chicago, Joliet and Rockford dioceses.
The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests sent a letter to Vatican officials, also calling on them to discipline five top Chicago-area church officials who they say have the power to add McGrath’s name to public lists.
David Clohessy (right) points to a list of Chicago-area clerics accused of sex crimes alongside attorneys Marc Pearlman and Melissa Anderson.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
“It’s the civic duty, and it’s the moral duty, of these five Catholic officials that had a role or have a role in his work ... that they warn the public about” McGrath, said David Clohessy, volunteer Missouri director of SNAP.
The Augustinian order settled a lawsuit in November for $2 million about McGrath’s behavior filed by Robert Krankvich, who said he was sexually abused years ago by McGrath, who was the principal of Providence Catholic High School in New Lenox, in the 1990s.
Advocates called for the Vatican to take action against Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago, in whose territory McGrath once worked at St. Rita High School on the Southwest Side; and Bishop Ronald Hicks of the Joliet Diocese, where McGrath worked for more than 30 years at Providence.
The letter also names Bishop David Malloy of the Rockford Diocese, where McGrath worked for four years at St. Edward Central Catholic High School in Elgin; Cardinal Robert Prevost, now a top Vatican official and former head of the Augustinian’s Midwest province; and the Rev. Anthony Pizzo, who is now in charge of the Chicago-area Augustinians.
The Chicago Archdiocese referred questions to the Augustinian order, which said it was in the process of dismissing McGrath. Archdiocesan officials did not say whether they plan to add McGrath’s name to any future list of priests deemed to have been credibly accused of sexual abuse.
The Rockford Diocese did not reply to a request for comment. McGrath’s lawyer declined to comment.
McGrath was forced out at Providence in December 2017, when a student reported seeing him viewing a photo of a naked boy on a phone while he attended a wrestling match. Police investigated, but McGrath said he couldn’t produce the phone. In a deposition this year, McGrath refused to say what happened to the phone. No criminal charges were filed.
“There is no quicker, simpler, cheaper way to protect kids from predatory priests than disclosing identities and putting their names on church websites,” Clohessy said.
The Catholic church’s transparency on accusations of sexual abuse by clergy members, including the Rev. Mark Santo, remains inconsistent and lacking across the United States, clouding the extent of the crisis more than 20 years after it exploded into view.
The cardinal, a close adviser to Pope Francis, is now at the church’s mandatory retirement age. He submitted his resignation letter, the Archdiocese of Chicago said, but the pope could refuse to accept it.
The Servites has had numerous priests and brothers accused of sexual abuse and faces an onslaught of new lawsuits. Unlike many dioceses and orders, the group has no public list of members deemed to have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. And other church lists are incomplete.
Rev. Goedert, a survivor of the Andrea Doria shipwreck, said in a 2007 deposition that he knew 25 priests had broken the law over the years by abusing children but never alerted police.
Rev. Richard McGrath’s name belongs on lists of abusers kept by all Catholic dioceses where he worked, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said.
The payout is in a lawsuit regarding the Rev. Richard McGrath, an Augustinian priest who ran Providence Catholic High School — and took the Fifth when asked about child pornography.
Bishop Ronald Hicks might consolidate 16 Joliet-area congregations and eventually close other parishes and schools, with “budgetary issues” a factor. His aides won’t say how much has been spent on fallout from the sex abuse crisis.
Kenneth Lewis, 62, entered the plea Thursday to a felony count of aggravated sexual abuse in a deal with Cook County prosecutors that saw other charges against him dropped, including predatory criminal sexual assault.
“I think that they should be” posting lists of abusive members “because it’s been actually asked of us by the larger church,” the Rev. Gregory Polan told the Sun-Times.
The attorney general didn’t name John D. Murphy. The Archdiocese of Chicago settled claims over Murphy but doesn’t include him on its list. And his order hasn’t named abusers — but said Saturday it hopes to “in the near future.”
The cardinal’s questions on how the Illinois attorney general’s abuse claims were substantiated “are particularly perplexing because many of those 125 names” came from the Archdiocese of Chicago, Raoul said.
There’s no room for anything other than full acceptance of the hard, brutal truth revealed by a five-year investigation: The Catholic Church in Illinois failed to acknowledge hundreds of allegedly abusive priests and other religious figures.
At the start of a five-year investigation by the attorney general, Cardinal Blase Cupich told seminarians the Archdiocese of Chicago had “posted all of the names” of predatory clergy. As the investigation neared its end, Cupich kept adding names.
The Rev. Paul Guzman returns to his position as associate pastor at Most Holy Redeemer Parish effective immediately, according to a letter from Cardinal Blase Cupich.
In a letter Saturday, Cardinal Blase Cupich said an accusation has been reported to the archdiocese that the Rev. Paul Guzman abused a minor when he was a layman — 25 years before entering Mundelein Seminary.
The Catholic order’s Marmion Abbey has posted a list of “established offenders.” Unanswered: why Brother Jerome Skaja stayed with the order for years despite “multiple” credible accusations of molesting minors.
The Rev. Michael Pfleger, longtime pastor of St. Sabina Church, was removed pending investigation of a sexual abuse allegation from more than 30 years ago.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has paid $800,000 this year to settle decades-old claims against the longtime Bronzeville pastor and four other priests.
The Archdiocese of Chicago for the first time has posted the names of credibly accused sex-offender priests from multiple Catholic religious orders — with many unexplained omissions.
During Sunday Mass, parishioners wore shirts saying, ‘We stand with Father Pfleger.’ The popular priest denies the latest allegation — the fourth against him.
‘Treat it as a dead subject,’ the victim says the dean of the Catholic school in Aurora told him. The Benedictines are still keeping secrets about clergy sex abuse, a Sun-Times investigation has found.
The employee, a 45-year-old man, exchanged gunfire Friday night with two people who entered the business in the 2900 block of West North Avenue and announced a robbery.
Just after midnight, a 49-year-old man was standing in the street in the 3000 block of West Warren Boulevard when someone exited a white sedan and opened fire, Chicago police said.
