KANSAS CITY (KS)
Kansas City Substack [Kansas City, MO]
August 20, 2026
By Melinda Henneberger
Investigation into ‘16 distinct allegations’ against Phil Baniewicz over 40 years finds consistency from complainants who didn’t know one another.
The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas announced today that based on an independent investigation into “16 distinct allegations” against former Bishop Miege President Phil Baniewicz “spanning from approximately 1985 to 2025,” he is barred from service in any capacity for the archdiocese.
That’s such a relief to at least a couple of the 16 who made those allegations that they can’t believe it.
These weren’t old accusations that had been long ignored but reports that had never been taken because previous vetting of someone known to have been accused of sexual assault 40 years ago had been so slapdash; the independent investigation ordered by the archdiocese a year ago started with two complaints, and the last two came in just recently.
“Two other girls reached out to me just in the last six weeks, and we didn’t know each other,” said one of the two initial complainants, Taylor Kelsey, a Wichita doula and former student at Maur Hill. She said Baniewicz pulled her into a closed-door meeting and grilled her about her sex life when he was president there. I heard no allegation that he touched a student other than with a “shoulder grab.”
The statement from the archdiocese said, “The investigation included interviews with the complainants, most of whom did not have an apparent connection to one another. The interviews exhibited a substantial degree of consistency regarding Mr. Baniewicz’s behavior.”
The former Miege and Maur Hill president has previously denied all wrongdoing, and the spokeswoman for the archdiocese said no more information will be released about the allegations.
Baniewicz always said he was falsely accused of sexually assaulting a boy in a church rectory in Mesa, Arizona in 1985, and that charge never went to court. But other red flags should have been looked into and were not.
‘Nobody was listening’
Katie Kincaid-Longhauser, a Miege graduate and child safety advocate who along with her sister and parents stood up two years ago and said Baniewicz should never have been hired in the first place, was crying in gratitude when I talked to her on Thursday morning, minutes after the announcement.
“Nobody was listening,” when she first started asking unwelcome questions about his hiring, she said. “I’m so thankful we faced this one and saw it through.” Archbishop Shawn McKnight “didn’t sit on it.” In fact, he announced an investigation during his first week in his new role, immediately after receiving Kelsey’s complaint.
A nearly identical complaint a year earlier, from Parker Valdez, was apparently lost in the mail and never reached its intended recipient, Archbishop Joseph Naumann, the archdiocese said, though everything in that letter had also been in a story I wrote for The Kansas City Star.
On Thursday, Valdez said she too was almost too surprised to process the news. “I’ll be waiting for my apology from the archdiocese. I understand that that was (now retired Archbishop) Naumann and this was (his successor) McKnight, but I did not have high hopes.”
‘I was unprepared for validation’
“I liked that they specifically said the complainants didn’t know each other and showed consistency. My letter says, ‘We’re grateful to you for your courage in coming forward.’ How about that? I was unprepared for validation and acknowledgement.”
“But, it was not solely on him but on the archdiocese for hiring this man,” who had a history that she felt should have barred him from employment in any school. “Maur Hill chose to disregard it. Miege and the archdiocese chose to disregard it.”
Here’s what Valdez means when she says multiple Catholic institutions should have known better than to hire him:
The Diocese of Phoenix settled a 2005 civil suit against him and two priests for $100,000.
Both priests accused in the suit later pleaded guilty to different crimes involving minors. One of them, former Father Mark Lehman, is a convicted pedophile who served 10 years in prison for the sexual abuse of a girl at St. Thomas the Apostle Roman Catholic School in Phoenix. He was also sentenced to lifetime parole for the sexual abuse of three other girls and one boy.
The other man accused in that civil suit, former Monsignor Dale Fushek, described Baniewicz in his memoir as “like a son to me.” Together, the two men founded the popular charismatic program called Life Teen.
Fushek was accused of fondling seven boys and young men and was initially charged with three counts of assault, five counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and two counts of indecent exposure.
After one of Fushek’s alleged victims died, he took the plea deal offered by prosecutors and avoided five separate trials by pleading guilty to a single count of misdemeanor assault. The Maricopa County Attorney, Andrew Thomas, said at the time that he couldn’t believe that the crimes in question weren’t felonies.
‘Poor boundaries’
Fushek’s whole MO, according to news accounts at the time, was to groom young men by grilling them about their sex lives.
To me, all of this should have been enough to trigger the real investigation that only happened now.
But when I wrote that two years ago, the archdiocese and Miege stood by Baniewicz. He’d been thoroughly vetted many times, his supporters angrily insisted. And who cares if he made some girls cry, some of my readers said.
“For 40 years, he was never in leadership the right way, but the wrong way, with poor boundaries,” Kelsey said.
The statement from the archdiocese said the investigation “disclosed serious concerns regarding Mr. Baniewicz’s conduct and determined a consistent pattern of imprudent professional conduct, repeated failures to maintain appropriate ministerial and professional boundaries with minors, deficient safeguarding practices, and conduct incompatible with the standards expected of those entrusted with ecclesiastical service involving children and vulnerable people. To date, no criminal charges have been filed against Mr. Baniewicz.”
The outside probe “was led by a professional investigation firm that conducted a comprehensive process that included 68 interviews, review and analysis of extensive records and reports, and consultation with authorities from multiple Jurisdictions.”
“It included a review of reports regarding his work as a youth minister in Mesa, Arizona, from 1985 to 1993; a senior officer of Life Teen, Inc, from 1993 to 2006; president of Maur Hill Mount Academy in Kansas from 2010 to 2023; and president of Miege from 2023 to 2025. Mr. Baniewicz was given multiple opportunities to address the allegations. He was interviewed and submitted a written statement.”
He was fired from his job at Miege a year ago, but this goes much further.
“Based on the recommendation of the Independent Review Board of the Archdiocese after an independent investigation into the allegations regarding Mr. Phil Baniewicz, former president of Bishop Miege High School, concerning his ability to oversee a safe environment for minors and vulnerable adults, Archbishop Shawn McKnight has determined that Mr. Baniewicz is not suitable for ecclesiastical employment, appointment, volunteer service, or ministry involving minors or other vulnerable persons within the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.”
Every bit of this could and should have been avoided. But that it will be from here on is a good if belated step – for victims and for the archdiocese. “He wasn’t going to stop until he was stopped,” Kelsey said.