ST. LOUIS. Sixty individuals have come forward with new lawsuits in Missouri, alleging they were abused as children by a range of Catholic clergy, including priests and nuns. Among those named is Archbishop George Lucas of Omaha, Nebraska.
The lawsuits, filed this week in St. Louis and surrounding counties, accuse 56 alleged abusers of misconduct, seeking unspecified damages. One lawsuit specifically names Archbishop Lucas, who, according to a claim filed Wednesday in St. Louis County Circuit Court, was accused of sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy in the late 1980s at the now-closed St. Louis Preparatory Seminary, where Lucas was a priest and dean of education. The lawsuit alleges that Lucas abused the boy multiple times and offered better grades in exchange for sexual favors.
In response, Archbishop Lucas issued a strong denial. “I categorically deny the accusation made by an anonymous person,” Lucas stated. “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.”
The lawsuits cover a broad time range, from as early as the 1940s to as recent as 2015. David Clohessy, of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), voiced concerns about the potential for further abuse, noting that at least ten of the alleged abusers are still alive. Some of the accused have prior criminal convictions or have been named in previous civil cases.
One particularly troubling lawsuit alleges that a priest and a nun sexually abused a girl with an intellectual disability from 1999 to 2002 when she was between the ages of 8 and 12. The lawsuit claims the priest threatened to kill the girl if she resisted. After transferring to another school, the girl was allegedly abused by a different priest from 2002 to 2004.
The lawsuits also target the Archdiocese of St. Louis and its current archbishop, Mitchell T. Rozanski, accusing church leaders of failing to stop the abuse. “This shameless cover-up spanned decades and allowed various clergy and other employees to access and sexually abuse numerous children,” the lawsuits state.
The Archdiocese of St. Louis has yet to respond to requests for comment. In 2019, the Archdiocese released a list of 61 clergy members facing “substantiated” allegations of child sexual abuse, following a 2018 report from Pennsylvania that exposed the abuse of over 1,000 children by hundreds of priests and the church’s efforts to conceal it.
Gary P Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
