18 Chicago area Jesuit priests — including Donald McGuire — linked to abuse

By Sam Charles
Sun Times
December 17, 2018

https://bit.ly/2R2qByW

A new report from the Midwest Order of Jesuits shows that Donald McGuire, a defrocked and convicted former Jesuit priest, was linked to decades of sexual abuse allegations.

A report released Monday by the Midwest Province of Jesuits shows that 18 Jesuit priests assigned to schools and churches in the Chicago area were accused of engaging in sexual abuse between 1944 and 2005.

In all, 65 Jesuit priests and brothers were named in the order’s report. The Midwest Province of Jesuits — a subsection of the religious order within the Catholic Church — operates in 12 states from as far east as Ohio to as far west as Wyoming. The full list of accused Jesuits can be found here.

“On behalf of the Midwest Jesuits, I apologize to victim-survivors and their families for the harm and suffering you have endured,” the Rev. Brian G. Paulson, SJ Provincial of the Midwest Jesuits said in a statement. “We recognize that our feelings on this day are nothing compared to the depth of suffering endured by those who have been abused, especially by one as trusted as a priest or vowed religious.”

Loyola Academy, the North Shore high school operated by the Jesuits, saw six priests accused of sexual abuse between 1964 and 1988.

Among that half dozen was the now deceased Donald McGuire, the defrocked former priest who was convicted by a Wisconsin jury in 2006 of molesting two Loyola Academy students while on a retreat near Lake Geneva in the 1960s.

In 2008, he was convicted in Chicago on federal charges that he brought a minor across state lines to engage in sex.

The new report shows that McGuire, who was an adviser to Mother Theresa, was assigned to several Jesuit locations between 1954 and 2005, all while he was repeatedly accused of sexual abuse.

The Jesuits’ report says that McGuire was accused of committing abuses at Loyola Academy from 1954 to 1957, and again at the high school from 1965 to 1970. More accusations stemmed from alleged abuse that occurred between 1974 and 1976 in Washington, D.C. He was again accused of abuses while at Loyola University on the North Side in 1976.

Allegations of abuse also followed from his time at the University of San Francisco between 1976 and 1981. Several more allegations stemmed from his time at the Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat House in west suburban Barrington between 1981 and 1988.

More accusations of abuse were reported after McGuire’s time at the Canisius House in Evanston and the Chicago Jesuit Community, where McGuire was assigned from 1988 to 2005.

McGuire was dismissed from the Jesuits in 2007 and laicized — permanently removed from ministry — a year later. He died in federal prison in January 2017 while serving a 25-year sentence.

In 2013, the Jesuits agreed to pay $19.6 million to settle a civil suit brought by six men who accused McGuire of sexual abuse between 1975 and the early 2000s.

St. Ignatius College Prep, the longstanding Jesuit high school at Roosevelt and Morgan, was also featured prominently in the report, with six priests assigned to the school accused of sexual abuse between 1944 and 1979.

Holy Family Church, which sits just next door to St. Ignatius and describes itself as the high school’s “mother institution,” also saw five of its priests accused of sexual abuse stemming from alleged incidents between 1953 and 1998.

A representative from St. Ignatius did not respond when asked to comment on the order’s report.

Other abuse accusations were linked to priests from Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Lake View and St. James Church in Gary, Ind.