CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
By Manya A. Brachear, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporter Jeff Coen contributed to this report
Published February 1, 2006
Seeking information instead of a financial settlement, plaintiffs in the first civil suit filed by an alleged victim of Rev. Daniel McCormack want the Chicago archdiocese to publish the names of all priests accused of sexual misconduct with children--a move church officials have repeatedly declined to make.
The suit filed Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court seeks an injunction that would force the archdiocese to give up the names of all accused priests--dead or alive--as well as documentation of the allegations made against them.
"I finally decided to take action to get the court to order disclosure of the names of offenders who are known and offenders who they suspect, but which are kept secret such as McCormack," said Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul lawyer who represents clergy sex abuse victims and has pressed the archdiocese to broadcast the names for years.
Anderson filed the suit on the same day the archdiocese confirmed for the Tribune that it had reasonable cause to suspect Monsignor Dominic Diederich, the former pastor of St. Maurice Catholic Church, 3615 S. Hoyne Ave., engaged in sexual misconduct with a minor. Diederich died in 1977.