Thank you for supporting our journalism. This article is available exclusively for our subscribers, who help fund our work at the Chicago Tribune.Attorney General Kwame Raoul speaks Tuesday on the findings of his office’s investigation into Catholic clergy child sex abuse in Illinois.
As The Globe’s groundbreaking reporting in 2002 uncovered the Catholic Church’s pattern of enabling abuse, I was among the first journalists to recognize the widespread implications of the newspaper’s work and investigate whether local church leaders engaged in similar conduct. I spoke with the man’s parents. They provided credible accounts about how their son’s behavior drastically changed during the time the abuse occurred. The mother recounted how she confronted the late Bishop Joseph Imesch after she discovered the letters.
The number of accused priests ticked higher as the months passed: 15, then 20, then 25. The attorney general’s report contains information about 69 clerics affiliated with the Joliet Diocese who sexually abused children. Many survivors wanted nothing to do with the church because they knew how the church would treat them if they reported the abuse. They didn’t want to hire a lawyer and they didn’t want to talk to police or other authorities. They may have also talked to a counselor or therapist, but they wanted someone else to know the truth, so they told me.Many did not want their stories told for publication. I recall a conversation with a woman who said she was a single mother raising five boys.
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