Fr. Arthur W. Niemeyer
First named publicly as accused by the diocese when added to its list 6/17/2020 of accused clergy. Parish priest in Belleville, Shiloh, Kinmundy, Salem and Cahokia. Director of St. John’s Orphanage in Shiloh in the 1950s and 1960s. Chaplain of St. Joseph Hospital in Breese 1976-1988. Died 4/26/1988. A former priest came forward shortly after Niemeyer was named in 2020 to say that in 1966, when he was a seminarian and volunteering at the orphanage, he and the orphanage’s mother superior reported to Bishop Zuroweste suspicions that Niemeyer was sexually abusing grade-school boys. Niemeyer was transferred, and kept in ministry. The former priest said he knows that one of the boys died by suicide. Included in the 5/23/2023 IL Attorney General’s Report. It details abuse by Niemeyer in the late 1970s of a boy he had met while a hospital chaplain. The boy was a patient’s brother. Niemeyer groomed the boy for a year, giving him special treats and taking him on camping trips. He sexually abused the boy under the guise of playing a game that would make him strong for upcoming high school basketball tryouts. After the abuse, Niemeyer let the boy drive his car then threatened him, saying that if he told, no one would believe him, he would go to hell, and that he (Niemeyer) would tell on Luke for driving his car without a license. At least two other men have come forward, one in 1987 and the other in 1993, to report abuse as children by Niemeyer while hospitalized.
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