Fr. Benjamin G. Smylie
Named publicly as accused by the Dallas diocese on its list 1/31/2019. Taught at Jesuit College Prep for many years. Included on the Diocese of Tyler’s list in 4/2019. Retired in 2002. Died in 2004. Added to the Jesuits Central and Southern Province list 2/27/2020. It notes that the allegations against Smylie were received after his death and that the abuse was said to have occurred in the 1980s. Accused in a lawsuit by multiple former Dallas Prep students, filed in 8/2019, of abuse of students in 1978 while a lay-teacher at Jesuit and in 1981 after taking his vows. The suit settled in 3/2022. While assigned as a teacher to Jesuit, Smylie reportedly also taught a course for other boys at his off campus apartment where they were plied with alcohol and sexually assaulted. One boy reportedly provided copies of a “demand letter” from 2002 requesting Smylie leave the priesthood. Per the lawsuit, when Smylie was Assistant Principal at Jesuit, he plied a boy with alcohol then sexually assaulted him on an overnight at Jesuit’s Montserrat Retreat Center. Other documents reportedly show a suit had been filed and settled in East Texas in the 1990s.
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