Woman Sues Dubuque Archdiocese

Telegraph Herald [Dubuque, IA]
July 13, 2005

Another woman has filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Dubuque, claiming sexual abuse at the hands of an archdiocesan priest.

The plaintiff, known as John Doe III, now lives in Washington state. Her suit, filed Monday in federal court in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, says that in 1964, when she was 13 and an eighth-grade student at St. Patrick Catholic School in Colesburg, Iowa, she was abused by the Rev. Patrick McElliot, a parish administrator, after confession.

This is the fifth lawsuit brought against the archdiocese by women claiming McElliot abused them at St. Patrick's or at St. John Catholic Parish in Waterloo.

McElliot also served as a chaplain at Mercy Hospital in Dubuque in 1967 and 1968 and as parish administrator at St. John Catholic Church in Andrew in 1971. He died in 1987.