A decade after defrocked Roman Catholic priest Daniel McCormack was arrested for molesting children at his West Side church, a Cook County judge has ruled that victims abused by McCormack after September 2000 can seek punitive damages against the Chicago Archdiocese if their lawsuits go to trial.
In a six-page ruling issued Tuesday, Cook County Circuit Judge Clare McWilliams wrote that it was reasonably likely that victims’ lawyers could prove to a jury that by ordaining McCormack and assigning him to parishes, the archdiocese acted with “utter disregard” and therefore deserves to be punished.
While this ruling is based on a motion filed in only one victim’s case, scheduled for trial July 22, it’s likely to guide future civil cases involving McCormack. Furthermore, if cases make it to the trial stage and juries impose punitive damages, it could cost the church millions on top of what it has already paid out to compensate victims of the convicted sex offender.
McCormack pleaded guilty in 2007 to molesting five boys and was sentenced to five years in prison. His case led to an overhaul of Chicago church policy and has cost the archdiocese millions of dollars in settlements, which insurance no longer covers. Every case has been settled before making it to trial.
“We have a long history of trying to deal responsibly with these cases to resolve them in a fair and compassionate manner,” said John O’Malley, an attorney for the archdiocese. “But sometimes you can’t do that for one reason or another and the case winds up in court, as this one did. We will continue to act responsibly and compassionately because that’s what we’re about.”
Allegations against McCormack became public in 2006, four years after Cardinal Francis George urged America’s bishops to remove any priest from ministry for a single act of sexual abuse.
But the cardinal himself, when notified that McCormack had been taken into custody by Chicago police in August 2005 for allegedly abusing a boy, did not remove him from ministry until a second arrest in January 2006. Later, outside auditors commissioned by the cardinal uncovered more than 30 missteps by the archdiocese in its handling of the McCormack case. So far, all of the civil suits have been settled before making it to trial.
Eugene Hollander, the attorney for a man who says he was sexually assaulted twice at St. Agatha in the North Lawndale neighborhood in September 2000, said the discovery process for the most recent lawsuits has uncovered more damning evidence that church officials failed to follow their own policies created in the early 1990s and ignored manifold signs that McCormack presented a threat long before that first arrest.
“Even Cardinal George testified in this case, ‘We acted like we were in silos, we didn’t share information, we should have done more,'” Hollander said, referring to the video testimony of George recorded in 2014.
During a hearing on the motion last week, Hollander said witnesses have testified that as an undergraduate at Niles College, McCormack molested a seminarian who had passed out drunk — misconduct that was reported to a counselor at Niles but never documented.
Depositions also revealed that years later when McCormack went to Mexico to learn Spanish with other students from Mundelein Seminary, they observed him hitting on a young man who appeared to be a minor, Hollander said. In reporting that to seminary officials, one of the seminarians added that he recalled McCormack engaging in oral sex with other seminarians at Niles, Hollander said.
When the then-rector of Mundelein Seminary, Gerald Kicanas, now the bishop of Tucson, Ariz., and then-vice rector Msgr. John Canary confronted McCormack, he admitted it, Hollander said, and the leaders notified Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. Yet, even though standard protocol called for expelling a seminarian who acted out in this way, Hollander said, Bernardin ordained McCormack in 1994.
“A jury could find that the defendants were aware that there was a problem of priests and pastors abusing individuals in their official capacity, and yet were reckless in investigating an individual who was training to become a priest when questionable circumstances, some involving borderline-consensual sexual activity, kept occurring,” McWilliams wrote in her ruling.
The judge pointed out that policies established by Bernardin’s own Commission on Clerical Sexual Misconduct called for “documenting seminarians as they progressed in their studies” and unifying the file system to maintain consistent records after they become priests.
McCormack’s first assignment happened to be at St. Ailbe Catholic Church on the South Side, which “was recovering from its own sex abuse scandal at the time he was appointed.” Two other clerics, John Calicott and the late Victor Stewart, have been accused of abusing minors there.
“As such, it is clear the defendants knew and recognized that there was a serious issue of clerical misconduct and recognized that they needed to take active measures to prevent dangerous individuals from being placed in a position where they would be a threat to the well-being of others,” McWilliams said.
During the hearing, archdiocese attorney Jim Geoly argued that the court should prevent inflammatory claims that stir the emotions of a jury and lead to an unfair trial.
“This is an inflammatory allegation, it is child sexual abuse,” Geoly said. “And the court needs to be very careful about inviting the jury to vent anger unless the evidence is really there to support that kind of punitive damage claim.”
That McCormack might have had consensual sexual relations during seminary shouldn’t lead the archdiocese automatically to presume he’s a threat, he said. Geoly also argued that the archdiocese is at a disadvantage because the records from McCormack’s psychological evaluations after concerns arose in seminary have been sealed by the court.
“We actually requested to use the records because we believe they help us,” Geoly said.
Marci Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University and an advocate for victims of clergy sex crimes, said punitive damages are uncommon in abuse cases, namely because the Supreme Court has discouraged them in personal injury cases over the last decade.
“These are the kinds of cases that might trigger a jury to give a large punitive damage even if there’s not proven compensatory damage,” she said, adding that a majority of abuse cases end up being settled and rarely go to trial.
She said such rulings can threaten dioceses financially since insurance often doesn’t cover punitive damages. But that would not be a jury’s problem, she said. Jurors’ main consideration is how much does it take for the defendant to start listening and do the right thing for the public interest.
Betsy Bohlen, chief operating officer for the archdiocese, said insurance no longer covers any claims involving McCormack, and those cases alone have strained the archdiocese — both spiritually and financially.
“There is no doubt there are a lot of things that have suffered,” Bohlen said. “Our own people have suffered in terms of the victims. And that’s a great sin that has happened to people who are faithful people. It’s created significant credibility problems in a world that’s secularizing.”
Though the archdiocese has maintained Bernardin’s pledge years ago that no money from the collection plate would be used to cover sex abuse settlements, the scandal has had an impact on the long-term financial stability of the church. So far, the sale of unused real estate has covered the costs, Bohlen said.
“We’ve had a plan in place for selling real estate based on market conditions and what makes sense for that real estate in a way that doesn’t create any fire sales,” she said. “We’re limited in the kind of investments we can make because those funds have gone elsewhere.”
According to the archdiocese, it has paid out a total of $139 million in clerical sexual abuse claims, but it would not release the total for McCormack settlements. However, last fall, it had received at least 30 substantiated claims against McCormack.
“We have always held that the amounts of settlements are not ours to disclose,” a spokeswoman said, adding that the archdiocese is “disappointed in the ruling and will respond in court at the appropriate time.”
mbrachear@tribpub.com
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