The Archdiocese of Chicago has closed nine out-of-court settlements with nine complainants of sexual abuse allegedly committed by eight priests, for a total amount of 5.4 million dollars, according to data published on September 10 by the Chicago Sun-Times. Four of those eight priests do not appear on the official list of clerics with substantiated allegations that the Archdiocese itself maintains published.
The settlements were presented at a press conference on September 10 by the law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates, which represents the complainants and is therefore an interested party. EWTN News, which raised the figure to 5.5 million dollars citing the lawyers, reported that the Archdiocese did not immediately respond to its requests for comment. According to the Sun-Times, the institution stated that the complainants “will be received with dignity and compassion.”
The priests named in the nine settlements are Michael Cepon, Russell Romano, Clement Carroll, William Devereux, James Sayers, Norbert Mayday —to whom two of the agreements correspond—, David Braun and William O’Connor, all of them deceased. The reported incidents span from the early 1970s to the late 1990s and the complainants were between six and fourteen years old at the time of the alleged abuses, according to the Chicago newspaper. Cepon, Carroll, Sayers and O’Connor do not appear on the archdiocesan list of substantiated allegations.
That discrepancy is the relevant data. The Archdiocese of Chicago has published since 2006 a list of clerics against whom it considers at least one allegation of sexual abuse of minors to be substantiated. The list, updated when the institution deems it necessary, constitutes one of the main instruments with which the Archdiocese makes public its response to the abuse crisis.
That an archdiocese pays for claims relating to priests absent from its own list raises the question of what threshold it applies to include a name and what threshold it applies to compensate. Marc Pearlman, one of the complainants’ lawyers, put it this way: “No one pays that amount of money for something that did not happen.” It is the position of one party.
Jeff Anderson described the settlements as “a turning point and a turning point,” and his colleague Melissa Anderson stated that they represent for their clients “some measure of justice.” The Sun-Times puts the total paid by the Archdiocese of Chicago to abuse survivors over the years at more than 400 million dollars, while the two law firms representing the complainants in these cases claim to have obtained more than 130 million dollars in settlements for hundreds of victims.
EWTN News recalls previous settlements of 1.2 and 1.75 million in 2022 and of 950,000 dollars in 2024, several of them related to Father Daniel McCormack, who admitted the abuses and served more than a decade in prison.
The agreements also come with the Archdiocese in an uncomfortable argumentative position. In 2025 it sued several complainants for, in its view, filing false claims to collect compensation, an unusual move that InfoVaticana reported in June of this year and which the institution justified by the existence of an alleged organized scheme.
Read also: The Archdiocese of Chicago denounces a scheme of false abuse allegations to collect compensation
Paying now 5.4 million for nine claims relating to eight priests, four of whom are not on its list, forces the Archdiocese to simultaneously maintain two messages: that there are fraudulent complaints and that there are complaints that deserve million-dollar compensation without going to trial.
As of September 14, neither Cardinal Blase Cupich nor the Archdiocese have published a specific note on the nine settlements, beyond the response provided to the Chicago Sun-Times. Nor has it been reported whether any of the four absent priests will be added to the list of substantiated allegations as a result of these settlements.
Read also: More than 176 million in compensation to abuse victims have bankrupted a New York diocese