Many survivors of Catholic clergy abuse in Illinois were not abused by a parish priest. They were abused by a brother who taught at their high school, or by a priest from a religious order who worked in a school, hospital, or orphanage. When they search a diocese's list of abusers, they often find nothing. That absence tells you very little.
The Illinois Attorney General identified more than 250 religious order clerics and brothers as substantiated child sex abusers, from more than 30 orders ministering in Illinois. Many of those men never appeared on any diocese's public list.
You do not need to have reported the abuse, and nobody needs to have been charged. A civil claim asks what a diocese or religious order knew, what it should have known, and what it did. Attorney Ervin Nevitt, a partner at Coplan + Crane, reviews these cases. He is registered with the Illinois bar (6319808) and was admitted in 2014.
Not every priest answers to a bishop
Members of religious orders, such as Jesuits or Oblates, belong to their order rather than to a diocese. They often work in schools, hospitals, and orphanages that the order runs, as well as in parishes. Their order, not the bishop, typically decides where they go.
The "not our men" problem
Diocesan representatives told the Attorney General's investigators that order members were not their men. Dioceses generally refer an allegation against an order member to the order. That means a complaint made straight to the order may never reach the diocese.
The effect shows up in the public lists. The Archdiocese of Chicago acknowledged nearly 60 order members with substantiated allegations who served within it. It still left them off its public list, because they had no diocesan ministry or were non-ordained brothers.
Who is responsible when the abuser belonged to an order
If you were abused at a Catholic school run by an order, the order kept the man's file and decided where he went next. That makes the order a central institution in your claim.
The diocese may be involved too. The Attorney General's report notes that survivors of order members often report to the diocese where the abuse happened. Church law also gives the bishop authority to watch over Catholic schools in his territory, including those run by orders. A claim can involve the order, the diocese, or both.
These claims are usually brought against a diocese or religious order, not only against the individual. The theory that most often carries them is negligent retention, though several usually run together, and which fits depends on your facts. The responsible body is usually a private organization, so the Tort Immunity rules that govern claims against Illinois public bodies do not apply in the same way.
The bigger picture from the Attorney General
In 2023, the Illinois Attorney General published a report naming 451 Catholic clerics and religious brothers as substantiated child sex abusers across all six Illinois dioceses, who abused at least 1,997 children. The data analysis tracks those abusers year by year from 1950 through 2019.
The investigation began in the second half of 2018 and covered the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Dioceses of Belleville, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford, and Springfield. Investigators reviewed more than 100,000 pages of diocesan documents. When it opened, only Chicago and Joliet posted any list of substantiated abusers, naming 103 men between them.
The report counts abusers by the diocese where they ministered. Chicago, covering Cook and Lake counties, had 275 in the report and 150 on its own list at the close of the investigation. Joliet had 69 and 52. Peoria had 51 and 43. Belleville had 43 and 42. Springfield had 32 and 23. Rockford had 24 and 24. The totals add up to 494, more than 451, because some men served in more than one diocese.
The report also names 160 clerics and religious brothers substantiated by Catholic sources whom the dioceses still had not disclosed. If a diocese's list does not include the man who abused you, the Attorney General's list is the next place to look. It is at clergyreport.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov, with a search function and a section for each diocese. If he is not there either, that does not mean you will not be believed. The report counts only men substantiated by the time it was published.
Each entry lists the man's Illinois assignments, the number of reported survivors, the dates and places of reported abuse, and the date the diocese says it first received a claim about him. If that date falls before your abuse, the diocese had a complaint on file while he still had access to you.
Transfer rather than removal
The pattern that recurs across these cases is transfer rather than removal. A priest or brother was moved after a complaint, and the complaint itself was recorded in an assignment history that still exists. For order members, that history may sit in the order's files, the diocese's files, or both.
Getting the files in a lawsuit
Once a lawsuit is filed, Illinois Supreme Court Rule 214 allows a party to serve written requests for specified documents. The responding party, whether an order or a diocese, must identify everything responsive in its possession, produce it as kept in the usual course of business or organized by the categories requested, and sign an affidavit stating whether the production is complete.
Those requests usually reach assignment histories, personnel files, personnel board and review board records, and school records such as rosters and trip records that place the abuser and the child together. For a brother at a high school, rosters and schedules can be especially useful.
The Belleville chapter of the report shows how revealing these files can be. Personnel board minutes from 1985 read, "In making assignments, must not forget about Fr. Kownacki," after the diocese had known of his abuse of children for more than a decade. At the trial of a survivor's lawsuit, the diocese's vice-chancellor testified that when the priest was transferred to a new parish in 1982, his abuse of children was common knowledge among diocesan leaders.
Churches have resisted producing files. The report describes the Diocese of Rockford refusing to hand a priest's personnel file to Kane County prosecutors, and the Illinois appellate court holding that internal church rules did not shield evidence of child sexual abuse by priests from discovery. Illinois keeps a clergy privilege (735 ILCS 5/8-803), but it is written around confessions and admissions made to a cleric acting as a spiritual advisor, and the court decides whether a document falls within it.
If your abuser was not Catholic clergy
The Attorney General's report covers only the six Catholic dioceses. Abuse in a Protestant or Orthodox church, a synagogue, a mosque, a Jehovah's Witness congregation, or another faith community will not appear in it. Records still sit with the congregation, its regional or national body, and any youth program, camp, or school it runs.
Any member of the clergy in Illinois is a mandated reporter under Section 4 of the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act (325 ILCS 5/4), and must report immediately to the Department of Children and Family Services when they have reasonable cause to believe a child known to them in that role may be abused. In a self-governing congregation, the local church or its board may be the only institution involved. Where a regional body ordains, places, or disciplines clergy, that body may hold the personnel history.
You do not need any of these records before you speak with a clergy abuse lawyer. Your memory of names, places, and dates is enough to start, and many survivors file a sexual abuse lawsuit anonymously in Illinois. Timing depends on the facts and should be checked with a lawyer.
Common Questions Around Religious Order Abuse Claims
He was a religious brother at a Catholic high school, not a parish priest. Who is responsible? Often the religious order that ran the school and assigned him, and sometimes the diocese as well. Dioceses frequently left order members off their public lists, so his absence from a diocese's list tells you little.
Do I need to have reported it? No. A civil claim requires no police report, no charge, and no conviction. Most people we speak with never reported.
Does someone have to have been convicted? No. A civil case uses a lower standard of proof than a criminal one and is usually brought against the institution rather than the individual.
It was a long time ago. That is the norm in this work rather than the exception. Your age at the time, who was responsible, and the particular facts govern it.
What happens when you contact us
Nothing starts because you ask a question. You speak with a person, not an intake script, and you do not have to describe what happened. We look into which institution was responsible, what it knew, what records exist, and whether a claim can still be brought. That work costs you nothing.
We tell you plainly what is possible. If you decide not to go ahead, it ends there, and what you told us stays confidential. If you go ahead, we carry the filings, deadlines, records, and the institution's insurers. Steps can be taken to protect your identity in the court record.
