Fighting to be heard amid church's silence

By Christy Gutowski
Chicago Tribune
March 01, 2014

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-chicago-archdiocese-sister-met-20140302,0,4669267.story

Graphic: Sister Peg's attempts to expose abuse

Amid the thousands of pages of despair in files documenting how Chicago church leaders in the past shielded pedophile priests, one name emerges repeatedly as a persistent, but frustrated, voice for the victims.

She is, at times, referred to as Sister Siena or by her real name, Sister Ivers, or by the name used by students and parishioners, Sister Peg.

The trove of Chicago Archdiocese records recently made public tell of her first encountering an allegedly abusive priest in the 1970s when she was a young, inexperienced principal at a Northlake parish school. After her pleas for his dismissal were ignored, she eventually resigned in disgust. A decade later, after another priest with a history of sexual misconduct was reassigned to serve as a college chaplain, leaders moved him again "due to difficulties with (Sister) Peg."

(See documents on Sister Peg's reports of alleged priest abuse.)

The files describe the sister later warning church officials about questionable behavior of three other clergymen. Despite frequent references to her, the records do not give her religious order or say what happened to this outspoken woman. So the Tribune set out to find her.

An important clue surfaced in a 1964 story in the newspaper's archives that detailed how sisters from the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary served as principals at some archdiocese schools, including one in Northlake.