Rev. Edward L. Ball, m.s.c.-Assignment

Assignment Record– Rev. Edward L. Ball, MSC

Summary of Case: Ball was indicted on four counts of abuse of minors in September 1992. He pleaded guilty to one count and was aentenced to nine months in jail and five years' probation. The family of two boys settled out of court in 1994. Ball was criminally charged in 1999 and pleaded no contest in 2001 to thirty-one counts of sexually abusing two other boys 1979-1986. He was sentenced to three years in prison. There was a $4.2M civil settlement from the Diocese and Order in June 2003. Ball may have returned to his order in Illinois after his release from prison in 2003. He died at some point before 2018.

Ordained: 1966
Laicized: 2002

Start	Stop	Assignment	Town/Accusations	State	Position	Notes
1966 Philadelphia archbishop was John Joseph Krol (1961-1988).	1967	St. John the Baptist	Haycock Run	PA	3/3 Pastor was Rev. Joseph W. Veth, MSC, second priest was Richard Huber, MSC.	Parish had a school with 139 boys and 140 girls.
1966	1967	St. Joseph's	Marienstein	PA		St. Joseph's was a mission of St. John the Baptist.
1966	1967	St. Lawrence	Riegelsville	PA		St. Lawrence was a mission of St. John the Baptist.
1967 Youngstown bishop was James William Malone (1966-1995).	1968	Sacred Heart Novitiate	Youngstown	OH	Vocational Director	Sacred Heart Novitiate was the "Clerical Novitiate and Office of the Mission Procurator of the Society of the Missionaires of the Sacred Heart.", per the Directory.
1968 Allentown bishop was Joseph Mark McShea (1961-1983).	1971	Sacred Heart Seminary	Center Valley	PA	Director of Vocations	Sacred Heart Seminary was the "Residence of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart who attend Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales", per the Directory.
1971 Toledo bishop was John Anthony Donovan (1967-1980).	1980	MSC Center	Shelby	PA	Staff member 1971-1974, Center Staff Director 1973-1976, Director of Permanent Diaconate Program 1977-1979.	The MSC Center was the "Adult Religious Education Center and Novitiate-Brothers' Juniorate of U.S. Province of the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart", per the Directory. The 1977 Directory indexes but does not list Ball in the Toledo diocesan pages.
1978? San Bernardino bishop was Philip Francis Straling (1978-1995).	1984	Our Lady of the Assumption	San Bernardino • Sexually abused preteen altar boys at this parish. (Press Enterprise [Riverside] October 20, 2000)	CA		This assignment is per news reports. (Press Enterprise [Riverside] October 20, 2000)
1980?		Bishop's Council	San Bernardino • Arrested in 1999 in Illinois for "alleged incidents [in California] with boys and girls between 1982-1988." (Chicago Tribune October 10, 1999)	CA		Ball is not indexed or listed in the diocesan pages of the 1980, 1981, 1982, or 1983 Directories. The Bishop's Council assignment is said to have begun "as early as 1980", per news reports. (Reno Gazette-Journal [Nevada] July 30, 2005)
1981		Straling Institution	San Bernardino	CA	DIrector	Named Director by Bishop Straling in 1981, per news reports. (Reno Gazette-Journal [Nevada] July 30, 2005)
1983	1986		San Bernardino	CA		Ball is indexed and listed in the Rockford IL diocese under "Priests in the Province Serving Elsewhere"- San Benardino CA, but he is not listed in the San Bernadino diocesan pages of the Directory.
1986	1989					Ball is not indexed or listed in the diocesan pages of the 1987, 1988, or 1989 Directories.
1989	1993	Our Lady of Fatima	San Bernardino • Pleaded guilty in 1992 to having molested three boys in the late 1980s. Spent 18 months in jail and time at St. Luke's treatment center for pedophile priests in Maryland. (Reno Gazette-Journal [Nevada] July 30, 2005)	CA	1/2 Working under Ball were Rev. Joseph Trong, MSC 1989-1990, Rev. Athanasius M. Bui Anh Tuan, CMC, Chaplain to the Vietnamese, 1990-1992, and Rev. James Vu Dai Luong, CMC, Chaplain to the Vietnamese, 1992-1993.
1993 Rockford bishop was Arthur Joseph O'Neill (1968-1994), replaced by Thomas George Doran (1994- ).	2001	Missionaries of the Sacred Heart Community	Aurora	IL		The MSC Community was the Provinicial Administrative Offices of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. Ball no longer appears in the Directories after 2001. Pleaded no contest in December 2000 to having molested two altar boys when he was at Our Lady of the Assumption in San Bernardino, CA. Sentenced to jail. (Inland Valley Daily Bulletin [Ontario] July 15, 2002) Released from prison in 2003 and is said to have returned his religious order in Illinois. (Press Enterprise [Riverside] October 17, 2003) Died sometime before 2018.

Source: Official Catholic Directory (New York: Kenedy & Sons, 1967-1979, 1984-1986, 1990-2001).

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 for part of the previous year as well. However, Kenedy & Sons will sometimes accept updates well into the year of publication. Diocesan clergy records are rarely available to correct this information. The Directory is also sometimes misleading or wrong. We have tried to create an accurate assignment record, given the source materials and their limitations. Assignment records are a work in progress and we are always improving the records that we post. Please email us with new information and corrections.

This assignment record was last updated February 25, 2021.