Altar server, parish kid, one of the boys who hung around the rectory game room when Father Joseph Fitzharris was there. If that was you, we believe you.

This page is for the kids from St. Francis Xavier on Nelson Street, and from St. Fidelis, St. Aloysius, Good Shepherd, St. Genevieve and St. Pascal, the ones who were there in the years Father Joseph Fitzharris was. Here's the part most people never heard. He pleaded guilty, in May 1987, in Cook County, to criminal sexual abuse of a 15-year-old; a misdemeanor, and a year of court supervision at the end of it. Six weeks later the Archdiocese of Chicago had him back in a parish. Three parishes, actually, over the next four years, with the Vicar for Priests assigned to keep an eye on him. What you can do about it now is the rest of this page. Not him. You.

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Looking for the Archdiocese page? Archdiocese of Chicago survivors.

This applies to you no matter what

It was decades ago. Of course it was; he was in Chicago parishes from 1962 to 1991, and the oldest report in the Attorney General's entry on him dates to 1968. Not one person who has come forward had a recent story.
It happened somewhere other than church. The rectory game room, a health club pool, a family's living room, a car. The Archdiocese's own file describes all of those, and the case is about the man it assigned, not the address.
You told someone and nothing changed. A pastor. A nun. Your parents. That is the pattern in this file, and it's a fact a lawyer can use, not one to be embarrassed by.
Your family was close to him. He ate at your table, your dad worked for the parish. Several of the people who settled with the Archdiocese say exactly that.
You were not an altar server, not even a parishioner. Some of the reports in the Attorney General's entry come from outside Chicago: Puerto Rico, Kansas City, Indiana, California, Colorado.
You're asking for a brother, a husband, an old friend who can't do this himself. Reach out anyway.

Father Joseph Fitzharris: what the public record says, and when

None of what follows is ours. It's the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, the Archdiocese's own personnel file (released under a court settlement in January 2014), the Illinois Attorney General, and the reporters who covered them, and every line links to where it came from. One word of care. Fitzharris pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count in 1987; everything else here is an allegation, a review-board finding, or a settlement in which the Archdiocese admitted nothing.

November 19, 1986 to May 4, 1987

Start with the Archdiocese's own card, which puts him on medical leave November 12, 1986, a week before anybody filed anything. What got filed, on November 19, was a misdemeanor complaint in the Circuit Court of Cook County, No. 86MC1-234071: criminal sexual abuse, the offense dated December 1985, him 49, the kid 15. He pleaded guilty to it in front of Judge Stuart A. Nudelman on May 4, 1987 and got a year of court supervision. The court closed that as satisfactory on May 3, 1988, and that was the whole of the criminal case. Certified statement of disposition and complaint, in the Archdiocese file (AOC 000723-724).

June 15, 1987 to December 1989

Six weeks after the plea, the Vicar for Priests gave him a six-month assignment at Good Shepherd Parish on South Kolin, with an on-site supervisor and a monthly meeting with Father Raymond Goedert, the Vicar for Priests. Then St. Genevieve from January 8, 1988. Then, in December 1989, a memo to Cardinal Bernardin asking to move him to St. Pascal, where the pastor 'is aware of Joe's problems' and would serve as on-site supervisor. Archdiocese file, memos of June 5-6, 1987 and December 2, 1989 (AOC 000789, 000809-810).

October 28, 1991

Cardinal Bernardin removed Fitzharris from St. Pascal Parish, 3935 N. Melvina, and barred him from any priestly ministry, one of four associate pastors pulled that week on a commission's recommendation over past allegations of child sexual abuse. Chicago Tribune, November 24, 1991.

February 5, 2003

A Vicar for Priests memo, made public in 2014, records that Fitzharris had 'admitted having sex with nine boys.' (He had resigned from the priesthood by then, in January 1995.) When the file came out, CBS Chicago boiled it down to a single line, more or less: convicted in 1987, back in ministry under Cardinal Bernardin in under two years, nine boys admitted. CBS Chicago, January 22, 2014.

May 29 and July 6, 2007

The Archdiocese settled 14 civil cases against a dozen priests, Fitzharris among them, for $6.65 million, according to the plaintiffs' lawyer. Six weeks later a former St. Francis Xavier altar server, molested between ages 7 and 10 in the 1970s according to his attorney, settled with the Archdiocese for $875,000 before his suit was filed. Chicago Sun-Times, July 7, 2007.

August 29, 2011

Angel Santiago, who says Fitzharris abused him at 12 at St. Francis Xavier in Avondale where his father was the janitor, announced a settlement with the Archdiocese. It came with a condition: the Archdiocese would have to release the files of accused priests. The Archdiocese confirmed the settlement and said Fitzharris had been reduced to lay status in 2009. Chicago Tribune, August 30, 2011.

January 21, 2014

The Archdiocese released more than 6,000 pages on 30 priests, the Fitzharris file among them. The New York Times reported Santiago's settlement as $700,000 and wrote that Fitzharris, 'who acknowledged abusing multiple boys, was defrocked in 2009.' New York Times, January 21, 2014.

May 23, 2023

The Illinois Attorney General's clergy report lists Fitzharris with at least 20 reported survivors, reports of abuse in Chicago from 1969 to 1986 and in Puerto Rico, Missouri, Indiana, California and Colorado, the Archdiocese's first notice in November 1986, and his status as laicized in 2009. Illinois Attorney General, clergy report entry.

We checked this on September 11, 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 Fitzharris did

Not him, in any way that matters. He's a laicized priest in his late eighties, if he is still living, and no one we've read has ever collected a dollar from him. The people who settled, in 2007 and 2011 and the 11 other cases his accusers' lawyer mentioned that year, settled with the Archdiocese of Chicago. That is who assigned him, who put him on medical leave the week the complaint was filed, and who, six weeks after his guilty plea, sent him to Good Shepherd with a supervisor and a monthly check-in. Same theory as every page we run: the institution knew, and kept him near children anyway.

What makes this file different is that the knowing is written down. The Archdiocese's own memos, released in 2014, show the Vicar for Priests reporting on him to Cardinal Bernardin, a pastor told to watch him, a 1991 contract forbidding contact with minors, and a 2003 note that he had admitted to nine boys. The Attorney General's 2023 report puts the Archdiocese's first notice at November 1986 and the survivor count at 20 or more. A complaint built on those pages doesn't have to guess what the Archdiocese knew. It quotes it.

One more thing said plainly. He is on the Archdiocese's own list of clergy with substantiated allegations, and has been since March 20, 2006. That's the Archdiocese's finding about the allegations against him, not a court's. The 1987 plea is the court's.

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

Illinois took the deadline off in 2014. For childhood sexual abuse there is no statute of limitations anymore (735 ILCS 5/13-202.2), and Illinois courts have kept it that way.

Here's the catch, and it is why we ask about 1983. The 2014 law didn't reach backward: a claim that had already run out under the old rules stayed run out. So, roughly, born in 1983 or later and your claim was still alive when the law changed, and you can file on age alone. Most people who were kids under Fitzharris were born before that, and for them it turns on two other 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 whether the parish or the Archdiocese was told and kept quiet. Illinois keeps that second path open when an institution concealed, and this is a file where the concealing is on paper.

So the honest answer is: for the 1983-to-1991 kids, no clock at all; for everyone earlier, probably a path, but it turns on facts only you know. That's a conversation with a lawyer, not something a web page can settle. It costs nothing to have it.

Your situation still qualifies even if

It wasn't Fitzharris. Another priest, a teacher, a coach in the same parish; the claim is against the Archdiocese either way.
You never told a soul. Most of the men in this file told no one for 20 or 30 years.
You did tell someone, back then, and were told to forget it. Write down who, if you can. It matters.
Some lawyer told you, years back, that you'd missed the deadline. The law they were reading changed in 2014. Ask again.
You liked him. Plenty of people did. He was the priest with pinball and bumper pool in the rectory. That doesn't cancel anything.
You live in Indiana, Wisconsin, or across the country now. The case is filed in Cook County no matter where you are.

Where he was

St. Louise de Marillac, La Grange Park (July 1962 to May 1967) · St. Aloysius, West Town, Chicago (1967 to 1973) · St. Fidelis, Humboldt Park, Chicago (1973 to 1978) · St. Francis Xavier on Nelson Street in Avondale, Chicago, now Resurrection Parish (June 1978 to June 1986) · St. Joseph and St. Bartholomew, Waukegan (June to November 1986) · Good Shepherd, South Lawndale, Chicago (June 1987 to January 1988) · St. Genevieve, Belmont Cragin, Chicago (January 1988 to 1989) · St. Pascal, Portage Park, Chicago (late 1989 to October 1991). The Attorney General's entry also lists reports from Puerto Rico, Kansas City, Indiana, California and Colorado, and the file mentions a health club pool. If your contact with him was somewhere else, tell us anyway.

Questions people are asking

Can I still sue if he's no longer a priest?

Yes, because the case was never really about him. The lawsuits and settlements we've found, 2007, 2011, and the others his accusers' lawyer described, were all against the Archdiocese of Chicago for putting him where he was and keeping him there. Laicized, resigned, alive or not, none of that changes who answers.

Who is Father Joseph Fitzharris, exactly?

A priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago. Ordained April 28, 1962; then 29 years as an associate pastor, six parishes in the city and one in Waukegan, the longest stay being St. Francis Xavier in Avondale, eight years, 1978 to 1986. That's the parish most of the people who've come forward remember him from. The rest goes fast. Charged in Cook County, November 1986. Guilty plea, May 1987. Back in a parish by that June. Out for good, October 1991. Resigned in January 1995, laicized in 2009.

Did Father Fitzharris get convicted, or just accused?

He pleaded guilty. May 4, 1987, Circuit Court of Cook County, one misdemeanor count of criminal sexual abuse, and the sentence was a year of court supervision, which in Illinois is the lightest thing a judge can hand down on a guilty plea. The Attorney General and the Archdiocese both describe it as a conviction, and so does everybody who's written about it. We're telling you the exact disposition because a lawyer will.

How much will a sexual abuse lawyer cost me?

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

Will anyone find out I came forward?

Not from us. Your answers go to one person at ME2. The people who settled in 2007 and 2011 chose to speak publicly; most of the men in the Archdiocese's file are identified only by initials, and a lawyer will walk you through how that works before anything is filed. Nothing is filed unless you say so.

Isn't there a statute of limitations on this in Illinois?

There was. It came off on January 1, 2014, for every claim still alive that day. The catch, and it's the one that matters here, is that a claim already dead under the older rules stayed dead, and most of the kids who knew Fitzharris, anyone born before 1983 or so, are in that group. For them the case needs discovery or concealment facts. This is a file where the Archdiocese wrote down what it knew, which helps. It's why the form asks about 1983.

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.