DALLAS (TX)
Morning News
Sept. 21, 2019
By Jennifer Emily
Mike Pedevilla has done a lot out of love for Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas since he graduated in 1983: He raised money. He organized alumni events. He stayed in close contact with his classmates.
And, last month, Pedevilla sued Jesuit and the Catholic Diocese of Dallas under the pseudonym John Doe, alleging he was molested by a priest and former president of the school when he was a student there in the 1980s.
The lawsuit names the priest, the Rev. Patrick Koch, a former Jesuit president who died in 2006 at the age of 78. And come next week it will name Pedevilla, who’s decided to cast off his anonymity.
The Jesuits’ motto, Pedevilla said, is to be “men for others.” And that, he said, is exactly what he’s doing by filing the lawsuit and revealing his identity.
“There may be some that say, ‘Mike, what are you doing to Jesuit? I can’t believe you’re going to make this public, and you’re going to deface Jesuit,’ ” Pedevilla said, sitting at his dining room table at his home in Grapevine.
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