This story was updated on Aug. 5 to include a lawsuit filed in St. Charles County.
Multiple lawsuits were filed against the Archdiocese of St. Louis on July 24 alleging incidents of sexual abuse of minors and coverup.
The lawsuits were filed in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis, St. Charles, Jefferson and Franklin counties, with 60 anonymous plaintiffs claiming they were abused by clergy, religious and laypeople in the archdiocese. The lawsuits allege most incidents occurred from the 1960s through the 1990s, though one plaintiff alleges abuse as recent as 2015 by a priest “whose full identity the Plaintiff expects to learn through discovery.”
Five suits name the Archdiocese of St. Louis and Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski as defendants. All of the allegations in the lawsuits precede Archbishop Rozanski’s 2020 installation as Archbishop of St. Louis.
The allegations of abuse include several priests who are on the archdiocese’s list of archdiocesan clergy with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor, released in 2019. Some of the alleged abusers are identified partially or without a name. Plaintiffs are identified only by their initials.
The plaintiffs have requested a jury trial and are seeking an unspecified amount in “compensatory, statutory, punitive and any and all” damages permitted by law, along with legal costs.
One of the suits alleges that in 1988 a 16-year-old student at the now-closed St. Louis Preparatory Seminary was abused by then-Father George J. Lucas, dean of education at the school at the time and now archbishop of the Archdiocese of Omaha, Nebraska.
“I categorically deny the accusation made by an anonymous person,” Archbishop Lucas said in a statement. “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.”
In 2019, the Archdiocese of St. Louis published a list of archdiocesan clergy with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. The list can be found at stlreview.com/3SvpJkO
The archdiocesan Office of Child and Youth Protection serves persons who bring forward allegations of sexual abuse by a member of the clergy or by lay employees or volunteers of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. When reporting abuse of someone who is currently a minor, please contact the appropriate civil authorities before contacting the archdiocesan office. To report past abuse, contact Sandra Price, executive director of the Office of Child and Youth Protection, at (314) 792-7704.
