Fr. Herman Henry Zerfas
Named publicly as accused in the MI Attorney General’s 12/15/2025 Diocese of Grand Rapids Report. Monsignor. Parish priest; high school teacher; principal; superintendent of Catholic schools. In 1994 a woman reported sexual abuse (as an adult) by Zerfas, beginning in 1979 and continuing for 14 years. She had gone to him for guidance during a time of “significant mental and physical difficulties.” In 2002 a woman told the Diocese that when she was a freshman at Muskegon Catholic Central High School in the early 1960s, Zerfas visited her when she was hospitalized with pneumonia. She said he pulled the covers off of her bed and “put his hands on her feet and rubbed her feet and moved up her legs, rubbing her legs.” In 2003 someone reported to the Diocese that some time in the past, girls in the 9th and 10th grades said that during confession Zerfas made them come from behind the screen, asked them “if they were virgins” and if they “let boys touch their breasts.” Zerfas died in 2010.
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