ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
July 26, 2024
By Jesse Bogan and Nassim Benchaabane
[See the lawsuit that names Archbishop Lucas.]
ST. LOUIS COUNTY — A new lawsuit filed against the Archdiocese of St. Louis accuses the archbishop in Omaha, Nebraska, of sexually abusing a teenage boy here in the late 1980s, a charge he denied Thursday.
The boy, identified in the lawsuit only by the initials D.S., is one of 27 victims in St. Louis County who have sued the archdiocese and its leader of covering up decades of abuse by priests, nuns and other employees.
In the lawsuit, filed in St. Louis County Circuit Court, D.S. claims that the Rev. George Lucas — now the archbishop of Omaha — sexually abused him while attending the now-closed St. Louis Preparatory Seminary School in Shrewsbury.
“Father Lucas required D.S. to meet with him for regular one-on-one check-in sessions,” the lawsuit alleges. “Eventually, these check-in sessions proved to be a ruse for Father Lucas to sexually abuse D.S.”
D.S., who grew up in Affton and now lives in Kansas, also alleges in the lawsuit that Lucas offered better grades for sexual favors.
On Thursday, Lucas denied the accusation. In a statement provided by his chancellor, Deacon Tim McNeil, Lucas said, “I categorically deny the accusation made by an anonymous person. I have never had sexual contact with another person. I referred the matter to the apostolic nuncio, Pope Francis’ representative in Washington, D.C., for his guidance.”
Lucas, originally from St. Louis, served in several local parishes before being promoted to leadership positions in the archdiocese, including rector of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in Shrewsbury. Before taking over the archdiocese of Omaha in 2009, Lucas served as the bishop of the Springfield, Illinois, diocese.
Most of the plaintiffs in the St. Louis County lawsuit, all of them adults now, still live in the St. Louis region. In all, the 27 victims allege they were abused by 22 clergy and two teachers at Catholic schools. Those alleged abusers include six former priests whose names were previously identified by the Archdiocese of St. Louis in July 2019.
At that time, then-St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson released the names of 64 clergy with credible allegations of sexual abuse or possessing child pornography. That list, which grew by five after additional investigation by the archdiocese, was released after an explosive grand jury report by the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office in August 2018, detailing abuse of more than 1,000 people by hundreds of priests in the state and reigniting tensions over cover-ups of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
Advocates had also long called for the St. Louis archdiocese’s accounting of credibly accused clergy, particularly since the archdiocese was court-ordered in 2014 to turn over a matrix of 240 complaints against 115 priests and other church employees as part of a lawsuit filed by an alleged victim of the since-defrocked Rev. Joseph Ross.
On Wednesday, 25 men and women also filed a lawsuit in St. Louis Circuit Court claiming Catholic priests and nuns sexually abused them and that church officials failed to do anything to prevent it. Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski and the archdiocese are the main named defendants.
Though Rozanski is relatively new to the archdiocese, the city and county lawsuits allege that the archbishop “ratified the abuse by the Abusers by continuing to place one or more of them in parishes even after receiving multiple reports of sexual misconduct.”
A church spokesman said Wednesday night that the archdiocese needed more time to review the allegations. On Thursday, the spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment. The archdiocese oversees Catholic matters in St. Louis and 10 surrounding counties in eastern Missouri. Membership is roughly 440,000.
Some of the alleged abusers in the lawsuits are named. Some are identified by first name, or nickname, because the plaintiffs did not know their full identity.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuits include both men and women alleging they were abused as children and teenagers at churches and schools across St. Louis and St. Louis County. The dates of the incidents in question range from the 1940s to as late as 2015.
Some of the alleged abusers were named by multiple plaintiffs. At least two cases allege a girl or boy was abused by multiple clergy or parish staff.
One plaintiff in St. Louis alleges she was abused regularly for years by both a priest and a nun at a Catholic grade school and then abused by a second priest when she transferred to another school.
Another case in St. Louis County alleged a boy was abused by three priests in groups of two or three at a time.
On Thursday, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, protested outside the Cathedral Basilica in the Central West End. They called on the archdiocese to be fully transparent with each case of alleged abuse and said they wanted to encourage victims to keep coming forward.
The number of people bringing forward allegations of abuse in the lawsuits filed this week is unprecedented in Missouri, said SNAP’s Missouri Director David Clohessy, a longtime advocate for victims of abuse by Catholic clergy.
“Never in this Archdiocese, never in Missouri, have so many victims come forward at one time,” said Clohessy. “We hope that seeing this many survivors take control of their lives will inspire people who were abused two months ago, two decades ago, to finally pick up the phone.”
Before this week, only one nun in the St. Louis region was publicly accused of abuse, Clohessy said.
The lawsuits in St. Louis and St. Louis County name five nuns as alleged abusers. Three are named and two are identified by a nickname.
Anne Gleeson, 66, part of the SNAP protest, said she was a “Jane Doe” in a previous lawsuit accusing a former nun and teacher, Sister Judith R. Fischer, of sexually abusing her at a school in Richmond Heights. It was among 23 civil suits alleging sexual abuse by clergy that the archdiocese paid $3.8 million to settle in 2004. Fischer died in 2004.
Gleeson said she was encouraged to see other victims of abuse by nuns coming forward.
“It’s a wider problem than people realize,” she said.
Todd Mathews, an attorney for plaintiffs in the two recent cases, said he filed three similar lawsuits with fewer plaintiffs in Jefferson, St. Charles and Franklin counties. In all, he said, there are 60 plaintiffs. The lawsuits ask for unspecified damages.
“Plaintiffs bring this lawsuit in order to hold the Defendants responsible for the injuries Defendants have caused and to protect other children from the pain of childhood sexual abuse,” the suit argues.
Post-Dispatch reporters Dana Rieck and Ethan Colbert contributed to this report.