Catholic leaders in Sioux Falls this week released the names of 11 priests who have faced what church authorities have said are substantiated allegations of child sexual abuse.
The former priests named worked in hospitals, schools and churches in southeastern South Dakota as part of their assignments with the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls.
Church leaders provided the names of the accused abusers as a way to reach out to victims and encourage them to come forward, said Matthew Althoff, chancellor of the diocese.
“That there’s just one name on this list is too many,” Althoff said.
After:Diocese of Sioux Falls names 11 priests accused of child sex abuse
The 11 priests named by the Diocese of Sioux Falls join the other 21 priests from South Dakota named in a similar disclosure last week by the Diocese of Rapid City.
Not included are the names of five religious priests who have also faced allegations of abuse. These people were mentioned, without being named, in a 2003 column by then-Bishop Robert J. Carlson, now Archbishop of St. Louis, following an independent audit.
Since the 1950s, the diocese has spent about $350,000 on settlements and counseling for victims and accused priests, Carlson wrote in his 2003 column for the diocese newsletter.
In the Diocese of Sioux Falls, the cases of proven abuse occurred between 1958 and 1992, Bishop Paul J. Swain said in a letter posted online with the list of names. Churches across the country responded to a grand jury indictment from Pennsylvania dioceses by releasing the names and information of the accused priests, including where they worked and where the abuses occurred.
The Diocese of Sioux Falls declined to share the service records of the 11 named priests. The bishop decided to withhold the information out of concern for the victims, Althoff said.
“It is truly out of deep sensitivity for the deserved confidentiality of a victim of clergy sexual abuse that all of these details the Bishop chose not to include in his letter,” Althoff said.
The Diocese of Sioux Falls has had a protocol in place since 1988 designed to prevent abuse and respond to victims of sexual abuse, long before coverage of clergy sexual abuse in Boston led to adoption by the Catholic Church. in 2002 of the Charter for the protection of children and young people. , says Althoff.
Local church leaders continued to revise and update the policy. The church has worked to promote prevention by empowering all staff and parishioners to report abuse, Althoff said.
“While the revelation of these names is shocking and impacts so many people, this is not the first effort by the Diocese of Sioux Falls to reach out to victims who may be among us.” , Althoff said. “It’s just one more step.”
Robert L. Grabowski
Grabowski was ordained in Sioux Falls in April 1955 and was listed as assistant pastor of St. Agnes Catholic Church in Vermillion in a 1957 Argus Leader article.
Argus Leader records show he was transferred to St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Salem in late 1957, listed as choir director of St. Mary’s Interparochial High School in 1959 and athletic director in 1960 , and he is described as superintendent of the school in a 1965 article.
The diocese lists Grabowski as having been permanently stripped of his “faculties for priestly ministry”, essentially his license to be a priest, in June 1979 and dismissed from the clerical state in March 1992.
Frank J. McNeil
McNeil graduated from St. Paul’s Seminary in 1971 and was ordained in June of that year. He served as a fire chaplain in five cities in South Dakota for 15 years before becoming the first Sioux Falls fire chaplain in November 1986.
His duties included visiting ill or injured firefighters, counseling them and their families, helping to report injuries or deaths, conducting funeral or memorial services, offering spiritual guidance, and blessing trucks. of firefighters.
He was elected vice-president of the Federation of Fire Chaplains in 1992.
McNeil moved to Sioux Falls in October 1986, according to an Argus Leader article from that year. He had regular full-time duties at the Prince of Peace Retreat Center and part-time duties at McKennan Hospital.
McNeil was a chaplain and firefighter in Madison, Watertown, Yankton and Jefferson before Sioux Falls, according to a Sept. 10, 1980, Argus chief. He was also the official state patrol chaplain, according to the same article.
He was removed from the faculties for priestly ministry in April 1993 and discharged from the clerical state in June 2004.
Guillaume Neuroth
Neuroth was ordained in 1963 and discharged in September 1994. He was discharged from the clergy a year later.
Neuroth worked as a priest throughout southeastern South Dakota and was a religious studies teacher at O’Gorman High School, during which time he was accused of abusing a teenage student, according to previous reports from Chief Argus.
Former O’Gorman student Kurt Brick filed a lawsuit decades later accusing Neuroth of abuse, according to the Argus.
Brick was 14 when the abuse began in the 1970s, according to previous reports from leader Argus. Neuroth quit teaching in 1975 when Brick’s family came forward and complained to church authorities, but he continued to serve as a priest for nearly two more decades, working in parishes across southeastern South Dakota, including Canton.
Brick’s 1995 civil lawsuit was later settled out of court, and as part of the settlement, the Diocese of Sioux Falls wrote a letter of apology to Brick, according to Argus Leader coverage.
Neuroth died in June 2013.
Thomas J. Ryan
Ryan was ordained in 1952 and discharged in 2002.
Ryan was originally from Mitchell, according to an obituary published in the Argus Leader. He studied for the priesthood at St. John’s College in Minnesota and was ordained in Sioux Falls at St. Joseph’s Cathedral.
He served the Diocese of Sioux Falls for 48 years, including teaching at O’Gorman High School and Presentation College in Aberdeen.
He also served as an assistant priest at St. Joseph, in addition to working at Yankton, Tea, Beresford and Hartford.
He died in January 2017.
Leonard M. Thury
Thury taught boys choir, choir, religion and geography at O’Gorman from 1964 to 1978.
He served as a priest in several parishes in South Dakota from his ordination in 1958 through the mid-1980s, including Tea, Christ the King in Sioux Falls, and St. Joseph’s Cathedral.
The diocese says Thury was removed from the priesthood in 1987, but his obituary says he left the priesthood in 1988 and married the same year. He died in 2003.
Leonard F. Stanton
Stanton was ordained in 1943 and served as a priest in several South Dakota parishes, including St. Agnes in Vermillion, St. Therese in Sioux Falls, and St. Mary in Salem.
He has also served as a regional Boy Scout chaplain, served on the Board of Directors for the Boys and Girls Club, served on the steering committee of the Catholic Boy Scout Committee of the United States, and led the office of religious education for the Diocese of Sioux Falls.
Stanton was removed from his priestly duties in 1993 and died in 1997.
Louis D.Nally
Nally was ordained in 1921 in Ireland and served in several parishes in South Dakota from 1950 until his retirement in 1973, including Mellette and St. Martin in Huron.
He also served as chaplain at the Gettysburg Memorial Hospital in Gettysburg.
Nally died in a car accident in 1987 at the age of 93. He was never removed from his position as a priest, despite the accusations confirmed by the diocese.
Milton J. Eggerling
Eggerling was ordained in 1954 and worked as a teacher at O’Gorman High School, while also serving as chaplain for American Legion Station No. 15 in Sioux Falls and working in churches and schools in Lennox and Aberdeen.
While in Aberdeen, Eggerling served at Roncalli Catholic High School until he became a senior official at the Aquinas Student Center in Aberdeen.
He died in March 2008 and the diocese has included no record of him facing punishment by church leaders despite confirming substantiated allegations of abuse.
James V. McCormick
McCormick was ordained in 1963 and discharged in 1993. He was a priest and teacher for more than 30 years in the Diocese of Sioux Falls, and he also worked in Kansas City, Missouri, before returning to Salem, South Dakota.
He died in March 2017 at the Salem Care and Rehabilitation Center.
Bruce MacArthur
MacArthur was ordained in 1953 in Sioux Falls and discharged in 1992.
MacArthur confessed to abusing up to 30 girls, including Judith Glassman DeLonga, a Florida woman who sued the Dioceses of Sioux Falls and Milwaukee in federal court in 2003. DeLonga said she was assaulted by MacArthur while that he was a hospital chaplain in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. .
DeLonga was 10 years old. The abuse occurred between 1965 and 1970, according to Federal Court records.
Prior to his discharge, MacArthur served as a priest at St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Milbank, Sacred Heart in Yankton, Human Services Center in Yankton, St. Peter the Apostle in Platte, and St. Williams. in Ramona. before being transferred in 1966 to Wisconsin, according to federal court records. He then returned in 1970 and was posted to St. John De Britto in Britton, then to St. Boniface in Seneca, his final posting in South Dakota.
The Diocese of Sioux Falls assigned MacArthur to churches in Texas in 1974 and then to Africa before retiring in 1995 – three years after he was removed from office.
He died in February 2012.
John Ignace Murray
Murray was ordained in Boston in 1955 and was relieved of his duties in 1991.
Murray served in several parishes in South Dakota, including St. Mary’s in Dell Rapids, St. Martin and the Church of the Resurrection in Huron, and Christ the King in Sioux Falls.
He was president of the Association of Christian Churches of South Dakota. After being removed from his position in 1991, Murray moved to Helena, Montana, where he died in 2012 at the age of 88.
Please check for updates on this developing story.
Editor Jeremy Fugleberg contributed to this report.
AID FOR VICTIMS
Sioux Falls Bishop Paul J Swain encouraged victims to come forward, promising to provide aid and meet new demands.
Victims should contact police, the Diocesan Victim Assistance Coordinator at 800-700-7867 and the Diocesan Chancellor at 605-988-3704. Victims can also email the Diocese at [email protected].
Victims of sexual abuse can call the Compass Center Crisis Hotline at 1-877-462-7474.
Sioux Falls police can be contacted at 605-367-7212.
