More Sex Abuse Cases Filed Against Diocese of Joliet

ILLINOIS
Patch

Incidents of abuse occurred at St. Mary Nativity School, involving then principal Emery Stiglich, and at the now-closed St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.

By Steven Jack

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 state — ultimately to protect its interests instead of the interests of the children entrusted to it,” according to a statement released by Hurley, McKenna & Mertz, the Chicago law firm that filed the lawsuits.

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