Advocates for clergy sex abuse survivors want priest added to all Chicago-area dioceses’ predator clergy lists

After being secretive for years, the Augustinian Catholic order has promised to publish early in 2024 a list of priests credibly accused of abuse.

On Thursday, an advocacy group called for the Rev. Richard J. McGrath, a priest accused of child sex abuse, to also be placed on predator priest lists kept by all Chicago-area dioceses where he worked.

At a news conference outside the Hyde Park friary where McGrath once lived, clergy sex abuse survivor advocates demanded that his name also be added to the lists of the Chicago, Joliet and Rockford dioceses.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests sent a letter to Vatican officials, also calling on them to discipline five top Chicago-area church officials who they say have the power to add McGrath’s name to public lists.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

“It’s the civic duty, and it’s the moral duty, of these five Catholic officials that had a role or have a role in his work ... that they warn the public about” McGrath, said David Clohessy, volunteer Missouri director of SNAP.

The Augustinian order settled a lawsuit in November for $2 million about McGrath’s behavior filed by Robert Krankvich, who said he was sexually abused years ago by McGrath, who was the principal of Providence Catholic High School in New Lenox, in the 1990s.

Advocates called for the Vatican to take action against Cardinal Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago, in whose territory McGrath once worked at St. Rita High School on the Southwest Side; and Bishop Ronald Hicks of the Joliet Diocese, where McGrath worked for more than 30 years at Providence.

The letter also names Bishop David Malloy of the Rockford Diocese, where McGrath worked for four years at St. Edward Central Catholic High School in Elgin; Cardinal Robert Prevost, now a top Vatican official and former head of the Augustinian’s Midwest province; and the Rev. Anthony Pizzo, who is now in charge of the Chicago-area Augustinians.

The Chicago Archdiocese referred questions to the Augustinian order, which said it was in the process of dismissing McGrath. Archdiocesan officials did not say whether they plan to add McGrath’s name to any future list of priests deemed to have been credibly accused of sexual abuse.

The Rockford Diocese did not reply to a request for comment. McGrath’s lawyer declined to comment.

McGrath was forced out at Providence in December 2017, when a student reported seeing him viewing a photo of a naked boy on a phone while he attended a wrestling match. Police investigated, but McGrath said he couldn’t produce the phone. In a deposition this year, McGrath refused to say what happened to the phone. No criminal charges were filed.

“There is no quicker, simpler, cheaper way to protect kids from predatory priests than disclosing identities and putting their names on church websites,” Clohessy said.

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