CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
By Jennifer Delgado, Chicago Tribune reporter
6:09 p.m. CDT, October 3, 2013
Members of an advocacy group for people abused by priests delivered a letter to Cardinal Francis George on Thursday, demanding he release details of the Roman Catholic Church’s investigation into a southwest suburban priest accused of molesting boys in the 1980s.
The letter was given the same day the Tribune reported that the Burbank Police Department hired the priest — the Rev. Robert Stepek — as a counselor who sometimes works with children.
With the Archdiocese of Chicago’s information, the residents of Burbank would likely object to Stepek being on the Police Department’s payroll, said Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. The archdiocese also should prohibit Stepek from holding that job, she added.
“The Police Department should know better,” Blaine said. “They’re supposed to be the people protecting citizens from people like Father Stepek.”
In May 2006, one man alleged to a priest that he and his brother had been sexually abused by Stepek in the early 1980s. Stepek was asked to temporarily step down as pastor at St. Albert the Great in Burbank
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