Established in 1948, the Diocese of Joliet encompasses seven counties within Illinois: DuPage, Kendall, Will, Grundy, Kankakee, Ford and Iroquois. It includes 117 parishes serving over 500,000 Catholics.
The Illinois Attorney General’s Report identified 69 publicly disclosed substantiated child sex abusers who served within the Joliet Diocese. According to the Attorney General:
“In the context of all Illinois dioceses, the Diocese of Joliet has been ahead of the curve in installing policies and procedures to respond to and prevent clerical child sex abuse. Even so, the diocese has demonstrated slavish adherence to off-the-books, unwritten policies that derail justice for abuse survivors and much-needed institutional transparency. The diocese also has a distressing history of allowing extern priests (those incardinated in another diocese) and religious order priests to minister in the diocese despite knowing that the priests have sexually abused children in the past. Some were even convicted of child sex abuse, yet the diocese welcomed them and allowed them to minister without protecting children from them.” Illinois AG Report at pg. 316.
The AG’s Report continues:
“As much as the Diocese of Joliet wants to paint child sex abuse by clerics as a remedied problem of the past, its community is still suffering from wrongs committed during the tenure of Bishop Imesch. Imesch orchestrated systemic cover-up of child sex abuse and squandered the opportunity in 2002 to rise to the moment and reckon with his diocese’s history of child sex abuse by clerics.
Imesch engaged in a pattern of keeping cleric abusers in circulation in the diocese without restriction. He testified as follows in a 2005 deposition:
Q: It is correct to say that you knowingly continued priests in ministry until the [Dallas] charter required their removal and you knew that credible allegations had been made against those clergymen, correct?
A: Yes. Yes.
Though difficult and traumatic, aging survivors of clergy child sex abuse that occurred in the Diocese of Joliet continue to come forward. These courageous victims escape the shackles of shame and denigration cast upon them by their abusers/tormentors. These reports remain confidential and oftentimes result in some form of compensation provided to the survivor by the Diocese.
Aging survivors of abuse that occurred in the Diocese of Joliet continue to come forward and disclose the sexual and spiritual abuse they suffered at the hands of predatory priest/abusers. If you are (or a loved one is) a survivor of clergy child sexual abuse, we encourage you (or your loved one) to seek counseling and therapy.
If you prefer to speak with us directly regarding your incident, please call The Meneo Law Group at 1-866-371-8506 1-866-371-8506 or send us a confidential email.