OMAHA (NE)
Omaha World-Herald [Omaha NE]
July 25, 2024
By Christopher Burbach
[See also the text of the lawsuit.]
A new lawsuit filed in Missouri accuses Omaha Archbishop George Lucas of sexually abusing a teenaged seminarian in St. Louis in the late 1980s, an allegation that
Lucas “categorically” denies.
The person, who is identified only by the initials D.S. in the civil lawsuit, accuses Lucas of abuse while Lucas was his teacher at the now-closed St. Louis Preparatory Seminary School in St. Louis. Lucas was a St. Louis archdiocesan priest.
D.S. is one of 27 adult plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed in St. Louis County Circuit Court against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis and Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski. The plaintiffs allege that they were sexually abused as minors by priests or others of the St. Louis Archdiocese and that the archbishop and other archdiocesan officials failed to protect them and abetted the abuse by covering it up. The suit does not name Lucas or the Archdiocese of Omaha as defendants.
Most of the alleged victims live in Missouri. The person who says he was abused by Lucas was born in 1972 and now lives in Olathe, Kansas, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says that the person met Lucas around 1988. Lucas required D.S., who was then a high school junior, to attend one-on-one check-in sessions, the lawsuit says.
“Eventually, these check-in sessions proved to be a ruse for Father Lucas to sexually abuse D.S.,” the lawsuit claims. The lawsuit alleges that Lucas engaged in sexual acts with D.S.
Lucas “staunchly denies” the accusations, said Deacon Tim McNeil, chancellor of the Omaha Archdiocese.
“I categorically deny the accusation made by an anonymous person,” Lucas said in a statement released by the archdiocese. “I have never had sexual contact with another person. I referred the matter to apostolic nuncio, Pope Francis’ representative in Washington, D.C., for his guidance.”
Lucas, who is originally from St. Louis, has been the Omaha archbishop since 2009. Before that, he was bishop of Springfield, Illinois.
Lucas, like many Catholic leaders, has dealt with and spoken about the issue of clergy sex abuse on several occasions.
In 2018, when the Omaha Archdiocese combed its personnel files and turned over records about abuse by priests to the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office, Lucas apologized to victims.
“I’m sorry for what you have experienced in the church,” Lucas said in a video the archdiocese posted on its website. “We cannot change the sins or betrayals of the past, but we can acknowledge these ugly truths of the past so that we can repent and so that we can be resolute in our determination that these things will not be repeated.”
The new lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
The lawsuit alleging Lucas and others have abused people follows a similar suit filed Wednesday in St. Louis Circuit Court. In the Wednesday suit, 25 men and women claimed Catholic priests or nuns sexually abused them and that church officials failed to do anything to prevent it, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
An attorney for the plaintiffs told the Post-Dispatch that more suits would be filed in Missouri.