Hundreds of documents were released today regarding fifteen priests of the Diocese of Joliet who have been accused of sexual misconduct with minors.
The release of documents comes less than six weeks after a trial court in Will County ordered the Diocese to make the documents public. According to the court’s order, the files were released because “there is a compelling public interest to protect children from being sexually exploited and abused.” The court concluded that ...
Read More ->Today marks the official resignation of Pope Benedict XVI (a.k.a., Cardinal Ratzinger). Rumors continue to surface that his resignation is directly linked to the sex abuse scandal within the Catholic Church, which is not surprising as his former position was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was responsible for investigating complaints of abuse by Catholic priests (and more often than not, allowing them to continue serving).
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A substantial volume of internal records are set to be released regarding the abuses of Father Lawrence Gibbs, a former priest of the Diocese of Joliet. Father Gibbs and the Diocese have been the subject of a number of lawsuits by abuse survivors, including a lawsuit that we filed in June 2012. Read a copy of our complaint against the Diocese of Joliet and the Estate of Father Gibbs.
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Thomas Hacker abused dozens of Boy Scouts in the Chicago area while he was a Scout leader and volunteer. In December , we filed a lawsuit against Hacker, the Boy Scouts, and the Chicago Area Council on behalf of a man who was abused by Hacker in the mid-1980s. This week we filed a lawsuit against Hacker and the Burbank Park District, where Hacker worked with children in the 1980s. Click “Read More” to read documents about Hacker.
Documents Regarding Thomas ...
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In the wake of the Pope’s resignation, the Chicago Tribune has written a long piece on the Archdiocese of Chicago, including its efforts to handle decades of child abuse by its priests.
It remains unclear why the Pope actually resigned, but we hope articles like this reflect the Archdiocese and other Church leaders realizing that the best way to put the abuse scandal behind them is to be transparent with abuse survivors and offer them ...
Read More ->The Pope has resigned as head of the Catholic Church, effective February 28, 2013. He is the first Pope to resign in nearly 600 years. While the official reason he gave is ailing health, the timing of his resignation comes as more and more European governments and investigators are scrutinzing his involvement in the child sexual abuse scandal in the decades before he became Pope.
Read More ->More than 40 years after it first learned that Father Raymond Kownacki was a sexual predator, the Catholic Church has finally defrocked Father Raymond Kownacki.
Read More ->A trial court in Will County has ordered the Diocese of Joliet to release documents regarding 15 priests who have been “credibly accused” of sexual misconduct or abuse with minors while serving as priests in parishes of the Diocese of Joliet.
Read the full order regarding the release of files regarding preists of the Diocese of Joliet.
The following 15 priests are identified in the order:
1) Fr. Salvatore Formusa, deceased
2) Fr. Leonardo Mateo, deceased
3) Fr. Donald Pock, deceased
4) Fr. James Frederick, ...
Read More ->TinleyParkPatch.com has written an extensive article regarding the nearly 300 “perversion files” involving Boy Scouts in Illinois.
Read More ->This past week, thousands of the “perversion files” of the Boy Scouts were released to the public, including dozens of entries from Illinois. The LA Times has posted a database with information pulled from these files, which includes direct links to some of the files. This database supplements the website released in Oregon last week.
For more than a decade, we have ...
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