CHICAGO (IL)
Daily Herald
In July 1985, Tom Ventura, vicar of priests for the Archdiocese of Chicago, received a phone call from a young man claiming that as a high school student about five years earlier he had been sexually abused by two priests in the rectory of Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago.
Ventura, according to documents released Thursday by the Archdiocese of Chicago, confronted one of the priests, James Flosi, about the allegations. Flosi, records state, vigorously denied the claims, and the matter was not pursued any further.
It wasn’t until 1991, after Flosi had taken a church-funded sabbatical, served at three other parishes and was blocked from a fourth amid rumors of him being gay, that more accusations surfaced and the Archdiocese took a second look.
What they found, according to church documents, were several allegations of sexual abuse against Flosi dating back more than two decades, including his years at St. Hubert Parish in Hoffman Estates.
By the time the Archdiocese substantiated the accusations in 2006, Flosi had been gone from the priesthood 14 years, declaring in a 1992 letter of resignation that “this is the only way I can continue to share my talents and gifts freely, and accomplish the many goals I have set for myself and to which I still feel called.”
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