GRAND RAPIDS (MI)
MLive [Walker MI]
December 15, 2025
By John Agar
[See also the full text of AG Nessel’s report, Diocese of Grand Rapids: A Complete Accounting.]
State Attorney General Dana Nessel on Monday, Dec. 15, released a report detailing allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct at the Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids.
The report showed that 51 priests in the Grand Rapids Diocese were accused of sexual misconduct involving children or adults since Jan. 1, 1950.
No criminal charges have been filed related to the Grand Rapids Diocese. In some cases, the statute of limitations has expired. In others, the allegations did not violate state law or the priest has died, Nessel said in a statement.
Charges have been filed in 11 cases across the state, resulting in convictions in nine cases involving 38 survivors, Nessel said.
Of the 11 cases charged criminally, none of the cases were related to priests ministering in the Diocese of Grand Rapids.
The 300-page report contains information compiled from a tip line, interviews of victims, police investigations, open-source media and paper documents and electronic documents seized from the Diocese of Grand Rapids
Nessel has already released reports for dioceses of Kalamazoo, Gaylord, Lansing and Marquette and will release reports for Saginaw in the spring and Detroit next December.
“These reports are important not just because we made a promise to the survivors of these abuses years ago, but because victims, especially in cases like these where the assaults were perpetrated by entrusted members of a community, are often silenced in some cases for decades or even a lifetime,” Nessel said at a virtual press conference.
“By publishing these reports, we are sharing and validating their experiences.”
John Agar joined The Grand Rapids Press in 1996 in covering crime West Michigan and elsewhere. He has reported extensively on the House of Judah cult based in Allegan County, the Holland Latin Kings street gang…more jagar@mlive.com