Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Incidents of abuse occurred at St. Mary Nativity School, involving then principal Emery Stiglich, and at the now-closed St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.
Five new lawsuits alleging cases of sexual abuse by priests and a Catholic school principal were filed in Will County Circuit Court Wednesday. Two of the suits stem from incidents that occurred in the 1970s and '80s at St. Mary Nativity School in Joliet and at the now-closed St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, which was located off Route 53 in unincorporated Joliet. The other three cite abuse that occurred at St. Dominic Catholic Church and St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, both in Bolingbrook, and at St. Boniface Catholic Church in Monee. Diocese of Joliet officials knew about or suspected the abuse, "yet engaged in a pattern and practice of hiding what it knew, and covertly transferring pedophile priests around the diocese and out of …
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Total of priests believed to have abused children now stands at 34.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Total of priests believed to have abused children now stands at 34.
In addition to the thousands of pages to be released detailing decades of abuse at the hands of Catholic priests in the Joliet Diocese, the organization Tuesday also released an updated list of credibly accused abusers. The list includes former St. Mary Immaculate Pastor Charles Van Duren. The accusations were brought to light after Van Duren's death in 1997, according to the diocese. He served as pastor of the Plainfield parish from 1982 to 1995. The names also include Alejandro Flores, a newly ordained priest from Shorewood's Holy Family Parish. In 2010, Flores apparently attempted suicide by leaping from the balcony of an abandoned Joliet church. He survived and eventually pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a young boy over a five-year …
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Read the first documents released Tuesday, a small taste of the thousands of internal personnel records that are to be released as part of sex abuse lawsuit settlement.
As part of a lawsuit settlement, the Catholic Diocese of Joliet will release more than 7,000 internal documents that reportedly show that every bishop since the 1950s has been aware of diocese priests sexually abusing children. The documents include personnel files and other items related to 15 diocese priests accused of sexual abuse over a 50-year period ending in the 1990s. They will be released by plaintiff David Rudofski through his Chicago lawyer, Terrence Johnson, as part of his settlement with the diocese. Although the diocese bears the Joliet name, it actually encompasses seven counties—Will, DuPage, Grundy, Kendall, Ford, Iroquois and Kankakee. Read more: Joliet Diocese Updates List of Credibly Accused Abusers The settlement, …
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Catholic Charities wants an injunction to protect them from having to comply with anti-discrimination laws tied to same-sex civil union legislation.
Catholic Charities in the dioceses of Joliet, Peoria and Springfield filed an emergency injunction Tuesday that would allow them to reject adoption requests from any unmarried couple, including same-sex partners joined in a civil union. The request, filed in Sangamon County Circuit Court in Springfield, seeks a temporary restraining order to stop the state from forcing the agencies to comply with anti-discrimination policies that were part of the civil union legislation that kicked in June 1, according to a story in the Chicago Tribune. The Joliet Catholic diocese includes all of Plainfield. St. Mary Immaculate Parish in Plainfield is the largest Catholic church in the state. According to the suit, the agencies are trying to "avert an …
Frank
9:48 pm on Thursday, March 21, 2013
Jay, I'm one of you. If you or I commit a crime, we're not protected...we're EXPOSED and appropriately PUNISHED! There should be NO exemptions for these "holy people." Child abuse is serious in nature...it's a heinous crime and perhaps the most horrendous anyone can every perpetrate on another human being. A MINOR CHILD HUMAN BEING. I find NO humor in this. Then you have people like "Mike" saying… more ›