CINCINNATI (OH)
Cincinnati Enquirer / cincinnati.com
August 5, 2025
By Dan Horn
Key Points
- New Cincinnati Archbishop Robert Casey led Casa Jesus in Chicago more than 20 years ago.
- Some priests connected to Casa Jesus later became the subjects of misconduct allegations.
- Casey said he strictly enforced the rules when he was in charge of Casa Jesus, which closed in 2016.
Not long after he became Cincinnati’s new archbishop in February, Robert Casey’s name started popping up in conversations online and among local Catholics about a now-closed program in Chicago called Casa Jesus.
Casey served as director of the program, which recruited Hispanic men for the priesthood, more than two decades ago. Neither Casey, who was then a young priest, nor Casa Jesus, a small project in the Archdiocese of Chicago, got much attention at the time.
But they are getting attention now.
That’s because Casey’s new job in Cincinnati makes him one of the most prominent Catholics in the United States, and because Casa Jesus remains mired in controversy over sexual misconduct allegations years after church officials shut it down.
“There are concerns about Casa Jesus and its history,” said Teresa Dinwiddie-Herrmann, a Cincinnati Catholic and a leader of the advocacy group Ohioans for Child Protection.
Those concerns center on Casey’s connection to a program that would, years after his time as director, make headlines for producing three priests disciplined for inappropriate relationships with men and another arrested on child pornography charges.
In an interview with The Enquirer, Casey said he couldn’t discuss the recent problems at Casa Jesus because he’s been gone for so long, but he said he strictly enforced the rules while he was in charge from 1999 to 2003. The residents there were young men, Casey said, and they were at the beginning of a yearslong journey to determine whether they should move on to the seminary and, eventually, to the priesthood.
Casey, who speaks fluent Spanish, was responsible for helping the residents of Casa Jesus through the first part of that journey, a process of prayer and reflection known to Catholics as “discernment.”
When it went well, Casey said, he recommended the candidate for admission to the seminary. When it didn’t, he recommended another career path.
“If I would see anything that was out of character, out of order, I would have the ability to send them home,” Casey said. “I took my role seriously. When I look back, I’m proud of my work there.”
Casey, though, said he understands why some Catholics are questioning his role at Casa Jesus so many years later. These are challenging times for the church, he said, and one of those challenges is restoring trust in the wake of the clergy abuse crisis.
“My role as a church leader is to continually strive for the best for the church, the best for our families, the best for our society, knowing that there are those who are going to not trust me, not believe me,” Casey said.
Any behavior problems ‘addressed immediately’
Casa Jesus already had been around for more than a decade when Casey arrived in 1999.
Church officials founded the program in the late 1980s to better serve the archdiocese’s growing Hispanic community, which by 2010 represented more than 40% of the Catholic population in the Chicago area.
The challenge was as great as the need: Find Spanish-speaking men who not only were willing to consider becoming priests, but who were willing, in some cases, to move to the United States to study both English and Catholicism.
“It was a mix of men coming from local parishes and men coming from other countries,” Casey said. “When I was there, we had less each year, because I took my gatekeeping seriously.”
Most years, he said, Casa Jesus housed fewer than 10 men.
Casey said he reviewed candidates before they entered Casa Jesus, monitored them while they lived there and reviewed their progress after one year to determine if they should go on to the seminary.
“If I had any awareness of questionable behavior, that would be addressed immediately, whether that behavior would be related to promiscuity or alcohol or just being a bad representative of the church,” Casey said. “If anything came to light, it would be addressed.”
Although no public scandals erupted at Casa Jesus while Casey was its director, the problems that arose later, particularly those involving priests who’d been through the program, raised questions about whether church officials had looked the other way in the past when residents broke the rules.
The Archdiocese of Chicago has acknowledged that three priests who were former Casa Jesus residents were later disciplined for inappropriate relationships with men. And an NBC News affiliate reported in 2015 that three other Casa Jesus residents were tossed out of the program for visiting a gay bar.
While such behavior breaks no laws, it goes against church teaching regarding homosexual acts, which the church considers “intrinsically disordered,” and violates the requirement that priests and seminarians lead celibate lives, regardless of their sexuality.
The most serious allegation related to Casa Jesus, however, did involve a criminal accusation. In 2016, police charged Octavio Munoz Capetillo, a former Casa Jesus director, with possession of child pornography.
Munoz was a student living at Casa Jesus when Casey was director, but Casey said he had no problems with Munoz at the time. Casey said he sometimes encountered behavioral problems with other students, but he declined to provide details.
“I discovered many kinds of behavior,” Casey said. “These are young men discerning priesthood. They’re the same young men you’d encounter on a college campus.”
Critics compare Casa Jesus to past leadership failures
Luis Stalin, a former Catholic seminarian in Chicago, said in a 2015 television interview that oversight at Casa Jesus was lax and no one complained when he went to gay bars with friends.
But in an interview with The Enquirer, Stalin said those comments referred to his time in the seminary – not to the year he spent at Casa Jesus under Casey’s leadership.
He said Casey was kind to the students, but strict. “He was respected,” Stalin said. “I never had an issue with him.”
Stalin said he eventually left the seminary because he struggled to learn English and because he’d been told his sexuality made him a bad fit for the priesthood.
Years later, after the arrest of Munoz in 2016, Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Blase Cupich shuttered Casa Jesus. In an email response to questions from The Enquirer, Cupich said he made the decision after concluding “we should focus on recruiting seminarians from the families living in the Archdiocese of Chicago rather than from other countries.”
When asked about Casey’s time at Casa Jesus and about former students who later got into trouble as priests, Cupich said he could not discuss “personnel matters.”
To critics of church leadership, Casa Jesus represents a failure to provide proper oversight and to own up to problems when they arise. It is similar, they say, to past failures related to child abuse and other instances of priest misconduct.
Following Casey’s appointment as archbishop, a column published in The Pillar, a popular Catholic news site on Substack, argued that Casey and other church leaders owe it to their flocks to be more transparent about what happened at Casa Jesus.
“It is unsurprising that Catholics have had questions about what the bishop observed at Casa Jesus, what actions he took to address a reportedly problematic culture there, and about what lessons can be learned about priestly formation and screening,” wrote JD Flynn, The Pillar’s editor-in-chief.
Some local Catholics share that view. Dinwiddie-Herrmann began her activism six years ago when she helped found Concerned Catholics of Cincinnati in response to the church’s handling of allegations against Geoff Drew, a Cincinnati priest now in prison for raping a boy.
“I believe the new regime should work on transparency, accountability and reparations for our victims,” Dinwiddie-Herrmann said. “Until that happens, the legacy of distrust will continue.”
Casey said he’s talking about Casa Jesus now because he understands those concerns and believes the church should be as open as possible about the work it does, even if the conversation sometimes might be difficult.
Casey made the same point in February, on the day of his appointment, when he discussed an abuse allegation he’d faced years earlier, which church and civil authorities investigated and determined to be unfounded.
Casey has said he knows the accusation would forever put “an asterisk” next to his name, but he doesn’t believe his time at Casa Jesus should do the same. He said the program served an important purpose and worked as it was supposed to work when he was there.
“It wasn’t just an open door to anybody,” he said.