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	Suit against Vatican Claims Sexual Misconduct at Lisle Orphanage in ’50s By Brian Hudson My Suburban Life October 13, 2011 http://www.mysuburbanlife.com/news/x485787394/Suit-against-Vatican-claims-sexual-misconduct-at-Lisle-orphanage-in-50s Lisle, IL — An Illinois prison inmate is claiming in a lawsuit that he was sexually abused more than 50 years ago at the Lisle orphanage that preceded Benet Academy. Charles Anderson, 60, who is serving a sentence for armed robbery, filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Holy See — the religious administration of the Catholic Church in Rome — and the Archdiocese of Chicago alleging that he was abused by priests and staff at Maryville Academy in Des Plaines and Lisle’s St. Joseph Bohemian Orphanage. According to the suit, Anderson and his sisters were abandoned by alcoholic parents in 1954 and were sent to live at St. Joseph. The suit claims a priest there would make Anderson, then younger than 5, sit on his lap while he became aroused. The orphanage closed in 1956 and reopened as a boys high school, St. Procopius Academy. (It became the co-ed Benet Academy in 1967.) When St. Joseph closed, Anderson was sent to Maryville Academy, where he was sexually abused by a priest and staff members over the course of several years, according to the lawsuit. Anderson alerted the archdiocese of the allegation about a decade ago, when other reports of sexual misconduct at Maryville surfaced, according to the suit. Robert Holstein, Anderson’s attorney, said the suit is not seeking money, but rather it is asking courts to decide on the church’s use of statute of limitations. By settling some decades-old sexual abuse claims out of court — even after the alleged criminality has expired — the Catholic Church has forfeited its right to invoke the statute of limitations in any case, Holstein argued. “We want the court to say, ‘They’ve waived their right to be selective,’” Holstein said. An attorney for the Holy See in the United States told the Chicago Tribune that the lawsuit was baseless and “does not even merit a response.” Anderson has been in and out of prison much of his adult life, according to state records. He is currently serving a 28-year sentence Shawnee Correction Center for a 1998 aggravated robbery conviction. He also served sentences for a 1984 felony armed robbery conviction and a 1979 burglary conviction. bhudson@mysuburbanlife.com
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