MILWAUKEE (WI)
Marquette Wire
September 11, 2018
By Morgan Hughes
After admitting to knowledge of sexual abuse allegations against clergy, former Marquette University President Rev. Robert A. Wild requested his name be removed from the university’s new residence hall. Opened to students as Wild Commons a few weeks ago, Marquette’s $108 million new development will now be known only as The Commons.
In a letter to University President Michael Lovell and the Board of Trustees, Wild said accusations were lodged against three members of the Chicago Society of Jesus while he was provincial from 1985 until 1991.
“Looking back, I would have handled certain aspects of those cases rather differently than I did then,” Wild wrote in the letter.
Wild served as Marquette’s president from 1996 to 2011, and on an interim basis from 2013 to 2014 and is the current chancellor for the university.
In an email statement to the university responding to Wild’s letter, Lovell said the Board of Trustees unanimously accepted Wild’s request.
“We are in agreement with Father Wild that this is the right decision for both Marquette and survivors of clergy abuse,” he said in the statement. “Anyone who knows Father Wild understands that he values the Gospel message of love and forgiveness and we move forward together as a Marquette community in that spirit.”
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