In Illinois clergy abuse cases, one pattern appears so often it has become the defining feature of these claims: transfer rather than removal. A priest was moved to another parish after a complaint. The complaint itself was recorded in an assignment history that still exists. Those records, and others like them, are often what a case is built on.
You do not need to have the records yourself, 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 (Illinois bar registration 6319808, admitted 2014), reviews these cases.
Why records carry these cases
These claims are usually brought against a diocese or religious order, rather than only against the individual. The theory that most often carries them is negligent retention: an institution keeping someone in place after it knew, or should have known, the danger he posed. In practice, several theories run together, and which fits is a question about your facts.
The responsible body is usually a private organization. The Tort Immunity rules that govern claims against Illinois public bodies do not apply in the same way, and the liability questions are the ordinary institutional ones. Those questions are answered largely by the institution's own paper.
How records come out once a case is filed
Once a lawsuit is filed, Illinois Supreme Court Rule 214 lets one party serve written requests on another to produce specified documents. The responding party must identify everything responsive in its possession. It must produce the documents as they are kept in the usual course of business, or organized by the categories requested. And it must sign an affidavit stating whether the production is complete.
The records that matter most
In a clergy case, the requests usually reach four kinds of records:
- Assignment histories: every parish, school, and residence the man was sent to, with dates and the letters announcing each transfer.
- Personnel files: complaints, correspondence with the bishop or provincial, leaves of absence, and treatment referrals.
- Personnel board and review board records: minutes about where the man could serve, and any finding on an allegation.
- Parish and school records: rosters, server schedules, and trip records that place the abuser and the child together.
What the Belleville records showed
The Attorney General's chapter on the Diocese of Belleville shows why these files matter. Personnel board minutes from 1985 read, "In making assignments, must not forget about Fr. Kownacki." By then, 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, it was common knowledge among diocesan leaders that he abused children. That is transfer rather than removal, in the diocese's own words.
When churches resist
Churches have pushed back on producing files. The report describes the Diocese of Rockford refusing to give a priest's personnel file to Kane County prosecutors. The Illinois appellate court held that internal church rules did not allow evidence of child sexual abuse by priests to be shielded from discovery.
Illinois does keep a clergy privilege (735 ILCS 5/8-803). It is written around confessions and admissions made to a cleric acting as a spiritual advisor. It is not a blanket shield for church files, and the court decides whether a given document falls within it.
Where the public record begins
Before a lawsuit, there is already a substantial public record. 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. Its 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 lists of substantiated abusers, naming 103 men between them.
The report counts substantiated abusers by the diocese where they ministered. Chicago, which covers Cook and Lake counties, had 275 in the report against 150 on its own list at the close of the investigation. Joliet had 69 against 52. Peoria had 51 against 43. Belleville had 43 against 42. Springfield had 32 against 23. Rockford had 24 against 24. The diocese totals reach 494, more than the statewide 451, because some men ministered in more than one diocese.
The report 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.
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. That date is often the most important line. If it falls before your abuse, the diocese had a complaint on file while he still had access to you.
Records held by religious orders
Not every priest or brother answers to a bishop. Members of orders such as the Jesuits or Oblates often work in order-run schools, hospitals, and orphanages, as well as parishes. The Attorney General identified more than 250 religious order clerics and brothers as substantiated child sex abusers, from more than 30 orders in Illinois.
Diocesan representatives told investigators that order members are not their men, and dioceses generally refer allegations about them to the order. A complaint made straight to the order may never reach the diocese. The Archdiocese of Chicago acknowledged nearly 60 order members with substantiated allegations who served within it but left them off its public list, because they had no diocesan ministry or were non-ordained brothers.
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. The diocese may hold records too, since survivors often report to the diocese where the abuse happened and church law 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.
Records in other faiths
The Attorney General's report covers only the six Catholic dioceses. A survivor abused in a Protestant or Orthodox church, a synagogue, a mosque, a Jehovah's Witness congregation, or another faith community will not find the abuser in it. Records still exist with the congregation, its regional or national body, and any youth program, camp, or school the faith runs. A congregation that is a party to a civil case must produce relevant records under the same court rules as a diocese.
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. Whether that happened is often central in a case against a non-Catholic institution. 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, it may hold the personnel history.
You do not need the records to start
None of this paperwork needs to be in your hands before you speak with a lawyer. Your memory of names, places, and dates is enough to start. 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 Records and Clergy Claims
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.
It was a long time ago. That is the norm in this work. Your age at the time, who was responsible, and the particular facts govern it.
How do I check the Attorney General's report? It is at clergyreport.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov, with a search function and a section for each diocese. If he is not there, that does not mean you will not be believed.
The abuse happened in a non-Catholic church. The report does not apply, but the rest does, including the mandated reporter law and the court rules on producing records.
What happens when you contact us
You speak with a person, not a form or a 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, that is the end of it, and what you told us stays confidential. If you go ahead, we carry the filings, deadlines, records, and insurers. Steps can be taken to protect your identity in the court record.
