Shock and questions abound after the Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha made public on Friday the names of 38 clergy members accused of sexual misdeeds with minors.
The archdiocese said “substantiated claims of sexual abuse of, or sexual misconduct with, a minor” had been made against 34 priests and four deacons on a list it provided to Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson, who had asked for the information.
The files go back to 1978, as requested by the attorney general. Only a few of the accused have faced criminal charges or civil lawsuits.
The list included widely known abuser priests from Omaha, such as Daniel Herek and the late John Fiala. Herek was convicted of molesting a 14-year-old altar boy and was accused in civil court of sexually abusing several others. Fiala, after facing sex abuse allegations in Omaha, was allowed to continue as a priest in Texas, where he raped a 16-year-old boy, then tried to hire an assassin to kill the youth. Fiala was sentenced in 2012 to 60 years in prison.
The list released Friday also revealed the existence of allegations against 15 priests that previously had not been made public. Shock waves are likely to ripple through Catholic circles in Omaha over some of the revelations, such as the allegations that were made against the Rev. Daniel Kenney, the Jesuit priest who founded Operation Others in 1968 and became widely known and highly regarded at Creighton Prep.
Read more at Omaha World Herald