Abuse Claims against Ex-round Lake Pastor Stretched over Decades

By Charles Keeshan
Daily Herald
January 21, 2014

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20140121/news/701219727/

[Raymond Skriba]

It was in 1970 that Archdiocese of Chicago officials first learned that a pair of teenage girls had accused the Rev. Raymond Skriba of touching them inappropriately in the rectory of a Southwest side church.

It wasn't until more than three decades later — by which time Skriba was the pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Round Lake — that the Archdiocese took action against him.

Archdiocese documents released Tuesday stretching more than three decades detail how Skriba, despite his denials of wrongdoing, was moved away from the parish where the girls had accused him because, as one church official put it, "this is not a good situation," and how he ultimately ended up in Round Lake where another allegation of abuse arose in 2003. In between, allegations of abuse stemming from his time at a Franklin Park parish in the 1960s surfaced.

In the Round Lake case, documents show that a man told Archdiocese investigators that in 1995, when he was in eighth grader, Skriba fondled him in the church sacristy. Another St. Joseph parishioner complained that in 1992 Skriba asked her 7-year-old daughter inappropriate sexual questions during confession.

In June 2004, Francis Cardinal George issued a decree finding Skriba guilty of misconduct and barred him from ministering as a priest for five years. Skriba later retired from the priesthood.

To read all the documents regarding Skriba and 29 other accused priests, visit abusedinchicago.com.