SPRINGFIELD (IL)
State Journal-Register [Springfield IL]
October 20, 2023
By Steven Spearie
In the early 1990s, Stephen Stack of Troy began to study for the priesthood in the Springfield Catholic Diocese.
After receiving his master of divinity degree from Mundelein Seminary but before he was ordained, Stack entered a psychological program to address problems of social anxiety and depression.
There he was first able to address his own history of sexual abuse.
He detailed for the first time publicly Thursday a succession of sexual abuse starting by his brother three years older than Stack, now 61. That brother had been allegedly sexually abused by a deacon in the family’s church, Sacred Heart in Granite City.
Another younger brother, Stack said, was sexually abused by the Rev. William Weerts, a priest of the diocese who in 1986 pleaded guilty to sexual abuse charges and was sentenced to six years in prison.
Stack, speaking at a Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests press conference in front of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, railed against the Springfield Diocese and Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, saying they have to come to grips with the problem more “compassionately and pastorally” and with “a sense of basic human decency.”
“It is extremely disappointing and hurtful, that our diocese, under the leadership of Bishop Paprocki, has dealt with the sexual abuse crisis only with cold distant legalism, pietism, and insincere apology, if it can even be called apology,” Stack said. “Mostly, they take a defensive approach, looking to scapegoat who they want to consider a few rogue priests while distancing themselves from any responsibility and offering only vague, feigned sympathy and lack of any true pastoral sensitivity.”
The comments came after SNAP submitted a formal complaint to the Vatican against Paprocki over the diocese’s handling of past child sex abuse allegations.
David Clohessy, the former national director of SNAP, said he sent to letter to Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio, or Pope Francis’ representative to Catholic Church in the U.S. Pierre works out of Washington, D.C.
Andrew Hansen, a spokesperson for the diocese, said Thursday afternoon that Paprocki had not seen the letter. Clohessy said he didn’t share a copy of the letter with Paprocki.
SNAP also on Thursday publicly appealed to address the diocese’s Eucharistic Congress at the Bank of Springfield (BoS) Center on Oct. 28. The event celebrates the church’s ongoing Year of the Eucharist and marks the 100th anniversary of the transfer of the seat of the diocese from Alton to Springfield.
Clohessy said the complaint process is the first by which people can report a bishop who interferes with an abuse report or an abuse investigation.
“We frankly think that Bishop Paprocki has done worse than that,” Clohessy said. “By his secrecy and recklessness, he deters and discourages victims from reporting their horrors.”
Clohessy was particularly incensed that none of the Illinois bishops had taken “any steps” in addressing recommendations Attorney General Kwame Raoul made in an exhaustive report published in May about the sexual abuse in the church in Illinois.
Clohessy said Paprocki is the only one of the Illinois bishops who refuses to reveal the parishes and other sites where child molesting clerics have served.
He added that Paprocki took the unusual move of setting up a separate website for credibly accused priests.
“I don’t think necessarily setting up a separate website is a bad move,” Clohessy allowed, “but why wouldn’t you logically put a list of dangerous and potentially dangerous priests in your diocese on your diocesan website?”
In a statement to The State Journal-Register, Hansen said, “What some clergy in the Church committed against innocent victim survivors was beyond shameful and disgraceful. We cannot undo these horrific damages of the past, but our diocese will continue to be fully committed to ensuring we do all we can to prevent abuse from happening again.
“The changes our diocese enacted have been effective as we are not aware of a single incident of sexual abuse of a minor by clergy alleged to have occurred in this diocese in nearly 20 years. As we have said in the past, anyone with new information about clergy sexual abuse, we encourage them to contact local civil authorities and the Diocese of Springfield, so appropriate measures can be taken.”
The AG’s investigation found 451 Catholic priests and religious brothers abused nearly 2,000 children in the state’s six diocese over seven decades. Before the investigation, dioceses publicly listed only 103 substantiated child sex abusers.
Also speaking out publicly for the first time Thursday was Scott Peters of Glen Carbon.
Peters, 57, said Monsignor Joseph Cullen O’Brien sexually abused him on several occasions while he was a student at St. Patrick Grade School in Decatur in the 1970s. Two of his three brothers also accused O’Brien of sexual abuse, Peters said.
According to the website Bishop Accountability, O’Brien sexually abused young boys over a period of three-and-a-half-decades.
“At the time of the abuse, I was scared, confused, and frozen,” Peters said. “Something in me died following the abuse.”
Asked if he talked to anyone in leadership about O’Brien, Peters said, “Bishop Paprocki and the church are aware of my abuse.”
Mark Fuller of Norwalk, Connecticut met Clohessy, Peters, and Stack at a SNAP conference and came out Thursday to support them.
The priest Fuller alleged abused him, the Rev. William Presley, was his confessor and counselor as a 19-year-old at the University of Notre Dame.
Fuller said he felt “betrayed.”
“It really devastated my life,” Fuller said. “The extra problem with priest abuse is I thought God had done it, that God had betrayed me and abused me. I’ve come around after many years. The effects of abuse are terrible: relationships I couldn’t start or maintain, finances that I didn’t earn, retirement that I don’t have, low self-esteem, a lot of fear of people.”
Stack said his pastor, the Rev. Kevin Laughery, is the only official person he has spoken to about the abuse. Laughery, he said, has been supportive.
“I’ve been afraid to talk because I work for the church,” he said. “This is kind of my first attempt to do something to approach Bishop Paprocki on this kind of level. I hope he will listen.”
Clohessy admitted he wasn’t hopeful about the church responding to SNAP’s complaint about Paprocki, but “frankly, we always feel compelled to try to make a difference.
“I’ve been involved in this issue for more than 35 years, and I can tell you what does have an impact, is the courage of these men (who spoke out Thursday). If we reach one Catholic parent who finds the courage then to pick up the phone and call his or her son or daughter and say, ‘Hey, when you were young, I let you spend a lot of time with this priest or deacon or monk or seminarian. Did anything ever happen to you?’ That’s what has an impact.
“Every time a survivor has the courage and strength to speak up, kids are made safer.”
Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; sspearie@sj-r.com; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.