Assignment Record– Rev. Alexander R. Anderson
Summary of Case: A priest of the St. Louis archdiocese ordained in 1975, Anderson assisted at several parishes before being named pastor of a parish in Eureka, was chaplain of St. Joseph's Home for Boys, and served on the archdiocesan Marriage Tribunal. In 2002 Anderson was accused publicly of child sexual abuse by a man in his 20s who said the abuse occurred when he was a young resident of the boys' home in the 1980s. Anderson denied the abuse and sued his accuser. The accuser countersued. In 2004 both suits were dropped and the archdiocese gave the former boys' home resident a settlement of $22,500 for counseling, admitting no wrongdoing and saying the money was "an act of kindness." Also in 2004 a second man accused Anderson of sexually abusing him as a boy, in 1988, at the boys' home. The archdiocese believed Anderson's denials, and he was kept in ministry.
Ordained: 1975
Start | Stop | Assignment | Town/Accusations | State | Position | Notes |
1975 St. Louis Archbishop was John Joseph Carberry (1968-1979). |
1979 | St. Pius V | St. Louis | MO | 2/4 | Parish had a school with 358-329 students. |
1979 Carberry was succeeded by John Lawrence May (1980-1992). |
1980 | St. Blaise | Maryland Heights | MO | 3/3 | Parish had a school with 285 students. |
1980 | 1981 | Immaculate Heart of Mary | St. Louis | MO | 3/3 | Parish had a school with 476 students. |
Diocesan Marriage Tribunal | St. Louis | MO | ||||
1981 | 1983 | St. Simon's | Concord Village | MO | 3/3 | Parish had a school with 432-475 students. |
1983 | 1988 | St. Joseph's Home for Boys | St. Louis • In 2002 a man in his twenties accused Anderson of having sexually abused him when he was a child at St. Josephs' Home for Boys. Anderson denied the allegations and sued his accuser. His accuser countersued. In 2004 the archdiocese gave Anderson's accuser $22,000. for couseling, as "an act of kindess." • A second accusation surfaced in 2004 by a man who said Anderson also sexually abused him as a boy at St. Joseph's in 1988. |
MO | chaplain | The Home had 44 boys. It also had day treatment students. |
1988 | 1992 | St. Andrew's | Lemay | MO | 2/2 | Parish had a school with 221-186 students. |
1992 Justin Francis Rigali replaced May as St. Louis archbishop (1994-2003). |
1993 | Assumption | Mattese | MO | 2/3 | Parish had a school with 432 students and a religious education program with 230 students. |
1992 Raymond Leo Burke succeeded Rigali (2003-2008). |
2008 | Sacred Heart | Eureka | MO | 1/1 | Parish had a school with 184-275 students and a religious education program with 170-352 students. When Anderson was accused in 2002 of child sexual abuse, Bishop Dolan believed Anderson's denial "on the spot" because Anderson "said it with a lot of peace." Dolan headed the review board, which decided the accusation had no merit. Within two months of the accusation, the statute of limitations ran out, and prosecutors did not have enough time to persue the case before it did so. |
2008 Burke was replaced by Robert James Carlson |
2020 | St. Rose of Lima | De Soto | MO | 1/1 | Parish had a school with 71 students and a religious education program with 127 students Anderson remains pastor of this parish in August 2020. |
Sources: Official Catholic Directory (New York: P.J. Kenedy and Sons, 1976-2009 )
• Activists Will Challenge Church over Priest, by William C. Lhotka, Post-Dispatch, January 17, 2004
• Priests Sue over Allegations, by Guy Kovner, Press Democrat, downloaded March 22, 2004
• Priest's Life Turned Upside down by Abuse Charge Judged 'Unfounded', by Joseph Kenny, Catholic News Service, April 8, 2004
• St. Louis Archdiocese to Settle 18 Abuse Cases, Associated Press, August 26, 2004
• Diocese Settles 18 Abuse Suits, by Tim Townsend, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 26, 2004
• Problem Priests: Settling and Spinning, Post Dispatch, downloaded September 7, 2004
• Complex Struggle: Prelate's Record in Abuse Crisis, by Serge Kovaleski, New York Times, May 16, 2010
Priests in a Parish: We use the following
convention to show a priest's place among the clergy of a parish: 1/2 means
that he is the first priest listed in the Official Catholic Directory (usually
the pastor) and that there is a total of two priests at the parish. The shorthand
3/4 means that the priest is listed third on a four-priest roster. See our sample
page from the Directory.
Note: The Official Catholic Directory aims to report
the whereabouts of Catholic priests in the United States on January 1 of the
Directory's publication year. Our working assumption is that a priest
listed in the Directory for a given year was at the same assignment
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This assignment record collates Anderson''s career history as it is represented
in the Official Catholic Directory with allegations as reported in the
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This assignment record was last updated on January 28, 2015.