If you were a kid in the parish, or a seminarian, under Father James Flosi, we believe you.

He was a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago for twenty-one years, 1971 to 1992, and five of them were at St. Hubert in Hoffman Estates, nine at Holy Name Cathedral, then River Forest, Franklin Park, Oak Park. Seven people have reported him, by the Illinois Attorney General's count, and the Archdiocese's own file shows it was told about him in July 1985 and did nothing it could later point to. He resigned in 1992, was laicized in 2010, and if some piece of your childhood ran through one of those parishes, or through Quigley, this page is for you.

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Looking for the Archdiocese page? Archdiocese of Chicago survivors.

This applies to you no matter what

The dates the Attorney General prints for Flosi all fall between 1960 and 1981. So if you're doing the math and getting forty-five years, fifty, you are the normal case on this name and not the exception.
Nobody ever charged him with a crime, and nobody on this page claims otherwise. What exists is the Archdiocese's own file, its review board's finding in 2002, its list, and the Attorney General's entry. A civil case does not need a prosecutor to have gone first.
He's alive, and he is not the point. The case you'd bring is against the Archdiocese of Chicago, which assigned him, took a report about him in 1985, and kept him in parishes for seven more years.
You, or your mother, told someone at the time. A mother did, in November 1991, and the Archdiocese's answer was a set of conditions for him to stay at St. Giles. Say so on the call. It matters.
It wasn't at the church. The rectory, the seminary, a car. The Archdiocese's file describes the rectory at Holy Name Cathedral more than once.
You are asking for a brother, a husband, a friend in his sixties who can't make this call. Reach out anyway.

Father James Flosi: what the public record says, and when

None of what follows is ours. It's the Archdiocese of Chicago's own personnel file, which it published in November 2014, the Archdiocese's list, the Illinois Attorney General's 2023 report and the reporters who read them, and every line links to where it came from. Flosi was never charged, never tried, never convicted. What the Archdiocese's review board found, it found under its own process; what the Attorney General lists, he lists. The word for everything below is allegation, except where the Archdiocese's own letters speak for themselves.

June 1971 to July 1992

Ordained May 12, 1971. St. Hubert in Hoffman Estates was first, effective June 14, 1971. Holy Name Cathedral came next, as associate pastor effective June 10, 1976, and from April 1978 he also directed the Archdiocese's office for separated and divorced Catholics while he was there. Then the west suburbs: part-time at St. Luke in River Forest, June 1985 to July 1988; a sabbatical; St. Gertrude in Franklin Park, a post he resigned effective December 2, 1989; and St. Giles in Oak Park from 1990 until he left the priesthood in July 1992. The appointment letters are the first pages of the file, if you want to check any of this. Archdiocese of Chicago, Flosi file (PDF, released November 2014).

1977 and 1980

Two statement abstracts in the file. One describes abuse "over a period of a couple of months in 1977" in the rectory of Holy Name Cathedral. The other says a boy of 15 was abused by Flosi in the same rectory in 1980. The file's abstracts replace the original statements, which the Archdiocese withheld to protect the people who gave them. Archdiocese of Chicago, Flosi file, pp. AOC 013360–013361.

July 15 and 16, 1985

The Vicar for Priests took a phone call from a young man who said Flosi and a second priest had abused him while he was in the seminary. Flosi was interviewed the next day and, in the words of a 1989 memo that found the note again, "totally denied it. There was no indication that anything further was done at that time." There was "no file on Flosi himself"; the note had sat in a general alphabetical folder. The caller had been a senior at Quigley North who worked at Holy Name Cathedral. Five weeks earlier the Archbishop had moved Flosi to St. Luke in River Forest, effective June 11, with thanks for "the good work you have done at Holy Name Cathedral parish." The report changed nothing. Archdiocese of Chicago, Flosi file, pp. AOC 013369 and 013435.

November 2 to December 12, 1991

A mother told the Archdiocese that Flosi had approached her son, then in middle school, and another boy, and taught them to masturbate; she didn't want a formal complaint, she wanted him stopped. Cardinal Bernardin phoned both boys himself on November 25, and a third person then called him with a similar account. On November 27 the Cardinal and two vicars met Flosi; the memo says he "did not deny it" but could not remember, and blamed diet pills. On December 12 the Cardinal wrote out the conditions for Flosi to stay in residence at St. Giles in Oak Park: never with anyone under 21 unless another adult was present, no contact with the school or religious-education children, supervision by the pastor. He stayed. Archdiocese of Chicago, Flosi file, pp. AOC 013526–013530.

July 7 and 13, 1992

Flosi resigned from active ministry by letter of July 7, 1992, with a year of benefits; Cardinal Bernardin accepted on July 13, thanking him for "more than twenty years of service." Ten years on, May 18, 2002, the Archdiocese's Professional Fitness Review Board voted six to nothing that there was "reasonable cause to suspect that sexual misconduct with a minor did occur." Cardinal George accepted it, and the Archdiocese wrote to the person who had come forward: "Since James Flosi resigned from the priesthood, the Archdiocese cannot impose any sanctions upon him." It had called him three times and he never called back. Archdiocese of Chicago, Flosi file, pp. AOC 013544–013545 and 013571–013575.

March 20, 2006, and October 2010

Ordained 5/12/1971. The five parishes. Resigned 7/1992. Laicized 10/2010. Status: Laicized, and not deceased. That's his row, near enough, in the version of the Archdiocese's list published February 10, 2025, a list he has been on since March 20, 2006 as a cleric with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. What does "substantiated" mean there? The list answers that itself: such a finding "represents the opinion of the Archdiocese, and is not a legal judgment or determination." Archdiocese of Chicago list, February 10, 2025 (PDF).

November 6, 2014

The Archdiocese released its files on 36 more priests, about 15,000 pages, Flosi's among them; it had opened 30 in January. Windy City Times read his in December: the allegations were "clearly known, sporadically investigated and mostly brushed aside." It also found the Cardinal's personal note on the resignation: "I am really distressed at the outcome of all this, as I know you are. I truly wish that it could have been otherwise." Windy City Times, December 3, 2014.

May 23, 2023

The Illinois Attorney General's Report on Catholic Clergy Child Sex Abuse in Illinois gave James Vincent Flosi, ordained 1971, his own entry among the 275 Archdiocese of Chicago clerics and brothers with substantiated allegations: 7 reported survivors. Dates and places of reported abuse, exactly as printed: 1960–1976, Hoffman Estates; 1972, Park Ridge; early to mid-1970s, Park Ridge; 1976, Chicago; 1981, Chicago. Diocese claim of first report: 1991. Two things, plainly. The 1960 start date is eleven years before his ordination, and we print it as the Attorney General does rather than fix it. And a first report of 1991 sits beside the Archdiocese's own file note from July 1985. Illinois Attorney General, Flosi entry.

We checked this on September 13, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from May 23, 2023. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who answers for what Father Flosi is accused of

The Archdiocese of Chicago, which on paper is the Catholic Bishop of Chicago, a corporation sole, and usually the parish gets named beside it, whichever one it was (St. Hubert, Holy Name Cathedral, St. Luke, St. Gertrude, St. Giles). The theory is the ordinary one and the Archdiocese's own file carries most of it. It assigned him. In July 1985 its Vicar for Priests took a call about him, interviewed him the next day, and, in the Archdiocese's own later words, nothing further was done; there wasn't even a file. In 1989 a second vicar found the note while Flosi was up for another appointment. In November 1991 a mother called, then a second boy, then a third person, and the answer was a letter of conditions that kept him living in a parish rectory in Oak Park into the next summer. That is the knowledge element, dated, in the Archdiocese's own hand. It told the Attorney General its first report came in 1991.

Flosi himself is not where these cases go. He is alive, so far as the record says, but out of the priesthood since 1992 and laicized since 2010, and in May 2005 the Archdiocese declared it "does not consider itself in any way responsible" for his activities after he left. What that means for the years he was its priest is a lawyer's question; the file it released in 2014 is most of the answer. And the Archdiocese can pay. It has never filed for bankruptcy, there is no claims deadline, and it settles one case at a time: on September 10, 2026 it announced nine settlements, $5.4 million, over eight priests, for abuse between the early 1970s and the late 1990s of children aged 6 to 14. None of the nine was on this name. By its own statement it has paid more than $400 million to survivors.

One thing to be clear about. Flosi was never convicted of anything, never charged. What exists is a review board's 2002 finding of "reasonable cause to suspect," a place on the Archdiocese's list, which the Archdiocese itself calls an opinion and not a legal judgment, and an entry in the Attorney General's report. Each is exactly what it is. We don't dress it up, and a lawyer won't either.

Your deadline: the Illinois statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse

Born 1983 or later is the rough line for having no deadline at all, and almost nobody on this page was. On January 1, 2014 Illinois took the clock off every childhood sexual abuse claim still alive that day. The catch is that word, alive: a claim that had already run out under the older rules stayed run out, and the Illinois Supreme Court has said the legislature can't undo that. Flosi's reported conduct ends in 1981. So the easy version, filing on age alone, is not the version for this page.

Here is the version that is. Born before 1983 and the clock turns on two things. When you first understood that what happened is tied to the harm you carry, which for a lot of people is decades later, and which the statute treats as a different thing from knowing the abuse happened. And whether the Archdiocese knew and kept quiet. Illinois holds the clock while a survivor is subject to fraud or manipulation by the abuser or anyone acting for him, and an Illinois appeals court has held that a diocese's silence about what it knew can be fraudulent concealment; a $5 million verdict on 1973 to 1978 conduct stood on that reasoning in 2011. On this name the concealment facts are not a theory. A 1985 note that produced no file. A 1991 letter of conditions nobody outside the chancery saw until November 2014.

In plain words, and the statute is 735 ILCS 5/13-202.2 if you want to read it yourself: there is a real path for the people on this page, but which path, whether it holds, and what the 1985 note is worth in your case is a lawyer's call on facts only you have. Twenty minutes on the phone. Not something you settle from a web page.

Your situation still qualifies even if

It wasn't Flosi. Another priest at the same parish or the seminary, a teacher, a coach. The case is against the Archdiocese either way.
You have never said it out loud to anyone. Most of the seven hadn't, for decades.
You were a seminarian, not a parish kid. The 1985 caller was. The Attorney General lists Park Ridge, twice, and nobody has explained why.
A lawyer told you, years back, that it was too late. Illinois changed that law in 2014 and the Archdiocese's file came out later that year. Ask again.
You still go to Mass. Plenty of the people in these cases do.
You moved away years ago, to Wisconsin or Indiana or Arizona, like most kids from those parishes did.

Where he was

Holy Name Cathedral first, 735 North State Street in Chicago, where he spent nine years, June 1976 to 1985, and where the file's abstracts put both the 1977 and the 1980 accounts, in the rectory. St. Hubert in Hoffman Estates came before it, June 1971 to 1976, and Hoffman Estates is one of the places the Attorney General prints for reported abuse; the other, printed twice, is Park Ridge, which was never an assignment. Quigley North: the young man who called in 1985 had been a senior there and worked at the Cathedral. Then the west suburbs. St. Luke in River Forest, part-time, June 1985 to July 1988. St. Gertrude in Franklin Park, 1989. St. Giles in Oak Park, 1990 to July 1992, under the conditions the Cardinal set in December 1991. Somewhere else, a trip, a car? Tell us anyway.

Questions people are asking

Was Father Flosi ever charged with a crime, or convicted?

No, neither. Nothing we have read shows a criminal charge, ever. What exists is the Archdiocese's own file, its review board's 2002 finding of reasonable cause to suspect, its list (which, by its own wording, is an opinion), and the Attorney General's 2023 entry. Civil, all of it. Not one piece of it is a conviction, and we don't call it one.

The priest is still alive. Can I still sue the Archdiocese of Chicago?

Yes. The case was never really about him. It's the Archdiocese, usually with the parish, that gets named, because the Archdiocese assigned him and, by its own file, was told about him in 1985 and again in 1991. He resigned in 1992 and the Archdiocese has said it isn't responsible for what he did after that. A lawyer sorts out what that means for the years he was its priest.

Who was Father James Flosi?

Honestly, the answer is already up the page, in the dated record, every line with its source: a Chicago priest, 1971 to 1992, whose own personnel file the Archdiocese posted in November 2014, and whom the Attorney General lists with 7 reported survivors. That's everything we are going to say about him today.

Am I too late under Illinois law?

Maybe not. It turns on your birth year and on what the Archdiocese knew, and when. Illinois removed the deadline on January 1, 2014 for every claim still alive that day; older claims need discovery facts or concealment facts to come back in, and for Flosi's years that is everyone. A 1985 note that went into a general folder and a 1991 letter of conditions are exactly the kind of facts a lawyer looks at.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Nothing, here. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed Illinois attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.