Community Notification Statement, Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, October 30, 2007

Community Notification Statement

Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix
October 30, 2007

http://www.diocesephoenix.org/main.html

The Diocese of Phoenix has learned that Fr. Donald J. McGuire, S. J., a Chicago Jesuit priest, is the subject of a lawsuit that was filed on October 23 in Cook County, Illinois. The lawsuit was brought by two men who report that Fr. Donald J. McGuire sexually abused them in Illinois and in Arizona between 1988 and 2002 when they were minors.

Fr. Donald J. McGuire, S. J.

Fr. Donald J. McGuire, 77, is a convicted sex offender who was found guilty in 2006 in Wisconsin of molesting two students from Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois, during the 1960s. He has been allowed by the court to live on probation in suburban Chicago, pending appeal of his conviction.

The Diocese of Phoenix has no record of Fr. Donald J. McGuire asking for or receiving faculties to administer sacraments in the Diocese at any time. However, the Diocese is aware that Fr. Donald J. McGuire conducted several privately-sponsored retreats for adults over the age of 21 at Mt. Claret Retreat Center in Phoenix in 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2001. Those retreats were not sponsored by or conducted by the Diocese of Phoenix, but were held at a Diocesan facility, which was rented out by a private association not affiliated with the Diocese. Fr. Donald J. McGuire is believed to also have conducted privately sponsored retreats in Casa Grande, Arizona, in the 1980s and 1990s as well as a privately sponsored retreat in Payson, Arizona, in 2002.

To date, the Diocese of Phoenix has not received any other complaints or reports of abuse or improprieties on the part of Fr. Donald J. McGuire. The Diocese takes this matter very seriously and urges anyone who may know of any sexual abuse or misconduct by Fr. Donald J. McGuire or who may have any information about him to contact the Maricopa County Attorney's Office at 602/506-3411 and the Jesuit Order's Chicago Province at 773-975-6363.

As always, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted and the Diocese of Phoenix encourage anyone who has experienced sexual misconduct or abuse by a member of the clergy or by any worker of the Church to make a report to local law enforcement and to contact Jean Sokol at the Office of Child and Youth Protection at 602/354-2396.