Fr. Donald J. Heydens

Included in the MI Attorney General’s 12/15/2025 Diocese of Grand Rapids report. In the early 1990s the Diocese substantiated allegations that Heydens sexually abused four teenage girls while assigned to St. Francis Xavier Parish in the early 1970s. There were out-of-court settlements in 1989 and 1994. In 1993 fifth woman alleged abused as a teenager by Heydens. Another woman filed suit in 6/1993 alleging Heydens sexually abused her as a teenager in the late 1960s. He was sent in 1993 to the Isaac Ray Center for psychiatric evaluation after which he was removed from parish ministry and restricted to no unsupervised contact with minors. He was allowed to work with the Sisters at Aquinata, in jail ministry, and with the Tribunal. In 2/1994 a woman informed the Diocese that She was sexually abused as an adult by Heydens in summer 1989. A woman told the Diocese in 7/1994 that Heydens sexually abused her when she was in high school, after she had attempted suicide. She said her family told Msgr. Zerfas twice about the abuse, who did nothing, and that she told the school principal, Sr. Edith, who expelled her. Heydens was appointed in 5/2000 to Diocesan Director of the Permanent Diaconate. He was removed from all ministry in 7/2002, after the 6/2002 Dallas Bishops Conference. Assigned to a ‘life of prayer and penance.’ In 10/2004 another woman reported sexual abuse by Heydens and another priest. In 9/2019 a woman told the Diocese that when she was in high school in the mid-1980s Hedens “stared at her breasts, put his hands on her buttocks, and swiped her breasts.”