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Oakpark.com
Opinion: Columns
Tuesday, August 12th, 2014 12:52 PM
By Dan Haley
Editor and Publisher
Odds and ends with some a bit odder than others:
Name in the news: Had not thought about Monsignor John Fitzgerald in a good long time. Like many active or deactivated Catholics, I suppose I live with the dull dread that the next time I hear a name from the past it will not be in connection with a blessing but with a sin.
And so it was on Sunday with the news that Fitzgerald, the long-dead pastor of Ascension Church, has now been accused of sexual abuse by a woman, then a teen, who says that the priest sexually attacked her while she sought counseling from him back in 1964. While reports are still sketchy, some of the details we have were rightly provided in the parish bulletin by Larry McNally, the current pastor.
As usual, there are questions about how the archdiocese has handled this information.
More will be learned. That’s the usual pattern. But until we know more, here are a few recollections of Fitzgerald that neither endorse him nor convict him but just offer some context for a person who was a major force in south Oak Park — well beyond his church — in the 1950s, 1960s and into the early 1970s:
He is credited with using his clout in the 1950s to stop the building of an additional entry and exit to the under-construction Congress Expressway (now the Ike) just a block south of his East Avenue church. In the 1960s he was visible in Oak Park’s early open-housing efforts, lending his name to petitions and, as the Journal has reported, working to help an African-American family purchase a home in the parish in part because he wanted his school integrated.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.