CHICAGO (IL)
The U.S. Sun [New York NY]
August 5, 2023
By Rachel Dobkin
A SURVIVOR who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of the Illinois Catholic Church has spoken out about coming forward as a victim almost 50 years after he was molested by a priest.
Dan Ronan, now an Emmy award-winning journalist, was just an 11-year-old alter boy in the fall of 1971 when Father Thomas Gannon abused him after an evening mass at Saint Jerome Roman Catholic Church in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois.
The church was down an altar boy that night, so Ronan had a hard time trying to do the job of two people.
As Ronan was in the church’s sacristy, a preparation room, getting ready to go home Gannon, who was in his mid-late 30s, came in.
“I could see immediately that he was in an angry mood,” Ronan exclusively told The U.S. Sun.
“He was probably six-foot-one and 240. He was a big boy. Big man ate a lot and easily could overpower me, which is what he did,” said Ronan who called himself a runt and had a broken arm at the time.
Ronan said Gannon was belligerent as he yelled at him for doing a bad job at mass.
“The next thing I know, he grabbed me and put his arms around me and like a bear hug, and he unzipped his fly and put my hand on his penis and told me what to do,” Ronan recalled.
Ronan froze at first but then was able to escape and run home.
“I never told anybody. I didn’t tell my grandparents. I didn’t tell my parents. I didn’t tell my best friends. I didn’t tell anybody. No one, no one knew,” Ronan said.
Gannon was named in the Attorney General’s Report on Catholic Clergy Child Sex Abuse in Illinois, which was released in May.
The report alleges that over 300 Catholic clerics abused more than 1,000 children in a 70-year period from 1950 until 2019.
Ronan, who is now 63, kept the sexual abuse he endured a secret for decades until about four years ago when his mental health was struggling.
“I had come through a real difficult period in my life. I had gone through a divorce. I had had cancer and beat cancer,” he explained.
Ronan continued: “I was sort of starting to sort my life out and get my life back and on track, and I was still dealing with some baggage.”
He decided to search for Gannon’s name on Google to find out if he was still alive.
“I wanted to confront him,” Ronan said.
GROTESQUE DISCOVERY
Ronan came across a 2019 article from Georgetown University’s student newspaper, The Hoya, which claimed that Gannon, who died in 2011, sexually abused minors at three different institutions.
In 1983, Gannon abused a minor at a church in Highland, Indiana, according to the US Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus.
He also abused minors when he taught at a high school in Ohio during the 1960s and at two parishes in Chicago in the 1990s, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church and Holy Family Church, the Midwest Province said.
“It hit me like a ton of bricks,” Ronan said.
He continued: “It hit me so, so hard and I got angry and I said: ‘You know, I’ve let this guy occupy space in my head for the last 50 years, 45, 48 years, whatever it’s been, I’ve let this guy occupy space in my head and I’m done doing that.'”
Ronan called up his lawyer.
“I said: ‘I’m not looking to make any money. I said, but I want some accountability,'” Ronan recalled.
For two years, Ronan and his lawyer negotiated with the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Midwest Province Jesuits.
They eventually reached a low six-figure settlement.
“I also insisted that I get an apology from Cardinal Cupich and Brian Paulson, who is the national provincial for the Jesuits.
“He’s the top Jesuit priest in the country,” Ronan said, noting that he and Paulson became friends.
Ronan said he hopes for Illinois to repeal its statute of limitations for civil child abuse claims like Maryland recently did.
This allows survivors to file a lawsuit based on child sex abuse allegations at any time.
Ronan said he has started to have conversations with government officials in Illinois to help get the law changed.
“There’s still a long way to go,” he said.