If you were an altar server or a kid in the parish under Father Norbert Maday, we believe you.

Twenty-eight years, six parishes, the youth office downtown, the scouting trips. A Wisconsin jury believed two of his altar boys in 1994 and a judge gave him 20 years. The Archdiocese of Chicago? It had been told about him in 1990, four years earlier. By 2023 the state was counting 72 people who'd come forward. You would not be the first.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

Looking for the page about the place, not the man? St. Bede survivors.

This applies to you no matter what

He is dead. He died in March 2019, in Wisconsin, a laicized man on a sex-offender registry. The claims that have been paid, and the ones still being brought, are against the Archdiocese of Chicago, which is very much alive.
It was a trip, not the parish. Oshkosh, a scout campout, a hotel pool, his car. The two boys the Wisconsin jury believed were on a parish outing 180 miles from home. Where it happened doesn't change who was responsible for him.
You told the pastor, or your mother did, and he stayed. That is in the Archdiocese's own file. It is not a reason to stay quiet now; it is the reason a lawyer will want to talk to you.
You liked him. A lot of kids did; he took boys places their parents couldn't. None of that is held against you, by us or by a court.
You had a rough stretch after. A record, a habit, a marriage that didn't hold. Same answer as on every page we run: it doesn't change your right to ask.
You are asking for a brother, a husband, a friend from the parish who can't do this himself. Reach out anyway.

Father Norbert Maday: what the public record says, and when

None of what follows is ours. It is a Wisconsin jury, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, the Illinois Attorney General, the Archdiocese of Chicago's own list and released file, and the reporters who read them. Every line links to its source. Where it is a conviction we say conviction, and only for what the jury found. Everything else, the seventy-two included, is a report or an allegation, and we call it that.

1964 to 1992

Ordained April 30, 1964. Never a pastor; 28 years as somebody's associate, at six parishes, St. John of God to St. Jude the Apostle in South Holland, where they pulled him in 1992. The full list with the years is under Where he was, below. Somewhere in the middle of all that the Archdiocese also made him associate director of its Council of Catholic Youth, the job that took him on the road. BishopAccountability.org assignment record.

July 1990 to February 1992

The first report the Archdiocese's own file shows, and the file has been public since 2014, came in July 1990, from a father who said his son had been abused roughly two years before. Maday was put on limited ministry with monitoring in November 1991 and removed from public ministry in early 1992, with an Illinois State Police investigation under way. National Catholic Reporter, January 2014.

April 22 and June 9, 1994

A Winnebago County jury in Oshkosh, Wisconsin took three hours to convict him of three counts of sexual assault on two Our Lady of the Ridge altar boys, 13 and 14 at the time, during 1986 parish outings to Oshkosh, and of threatening one boy's brother to keep him quiet. Judge William Crane gave him 20 years. The Archdiocese said the justice system had spoken. Chicago Tribune, June 9, 1994.

March 13, 1996

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment in State v. Maday, No. 95-0744-CR: three counts of second-degree sexual assault and one of intimidation of a victim; two consecutive ten-year terms and one concurrent, the intimidation term stayed for five years' probation. The opinion mentions, almost in passing, that nobody reported the assaults until 1992. Wisconsin Court of Appeals opinion.

Summer 2013

The prison term ran out in 2007. Wisconsin didn't let him go; it held him after that as a sexually violent person, until June 2013, when a judge cleared his release. Oshkosh police put out a notice that August: a 75-year-old moving into a town home on Bowen Street, GPS monitor for life, on the sex-offender registry. Patch, July 2013.

January 21, 2014

The Archdiocese released 6,000 pages on 30 priests under a settlement agreement. Maday's file showed Cardinal George writing him in January 2000 that he prayed the efforts for early release would bear fruit, church officials writing the Wisconsin parole board before a December 2000 clemency hearing, and the offer of a place to live withdrawn only in April 2007. He was laicized that December. National Catholic Reporter.

June 23, 2021

The Archdiocese paid $880,000 to two former St. Bede altar boys, 10 and 13 when it started, who said the abuse ran from about 1977 to 1983 at the parish and elsewhere. The settlement came before any suit was filed. He had died by then. Sun-Times.

May 23, 2023

Norbert J. Maday's entry in the Illinois Attorney General's report on Catholic clergy abuse: 72 reported survivors. First report to the diocese, 1990. Conduct locations running from Chicago in 1965 to Chicago Ridge in 1988, with Oak Lawn, Mundelein, Portage over in Indiana, and Wisconsin in between. Died 2019, it says at the bottom. Illinois Attorney General clergy report.

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 Maday did

Not him. He died in March 2019, and nobody is pursuing a laicized priest's estate. The claims that have actually been paid, in 2003, in 2021, and the ones filed since, are against the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Catholic Bishop of Chicago on the paperwork, the institution that ordained him, moved him six times and made him an associate director of its youth council. The theory is the ordinary one. A parish that hands a man the altar servers and the scout troop owes those kids the care any employer owes once it knows something. So the question is what the Archdiocese knew, and when, and what it did.

On this name the answers are short, because the Archdiocese's own file has been public since January 2014. A report in July 1990. A memo from March 1992 recording that a mother of two boys had gone to the pastor at the time, that the pastor spoke to Maday, and that Maday denied it. Then, after a jury convicted him, a $100,000 loan for his defense, a raised stipend while he sat in prison, and years of letters from two cardinals trying to get him out early. No court has ruled on what any of that means for a civil claim. The Archdiocese has never admitted liability; it has settled, which is a different thing. A lawyer will know what to make of it.

One more thing, because the Wisconsin case gets shorthanded. The conviction covers two boys on 1986 outings to Oshkosh, and nothing else. The Illinois side, six parishes over 28 years, rests on the Archdiocese's substantiated list, which the Archdiocese itself calls its opinion and not a legal judgment, and on the Attorney General's count of 72 reported survivors. Findings and reports. Not convictions, and this page doesn't pretend otherwise.

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

Illinois removed the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse on January 1, 2014 (735 ILCS 5/13-202.2), for any claim still alive that day. Born in 1983 or later, your claim was alive, and you can file on age alone. Almost nobody on this page was born that late; the documented conduct stops in 1988. So read the next paragraph. It's the one about you.

Born before 1983, and the older rule is the one that counts: 20 years from the day you first understood both that it happened and that it hurt you, which for a lot of people is decades after the fact. Illinois also stops the clock for as long as the abuser, or the people around him, kept you quiet by threats, manipulation or concealment. On this name a jury found the threat, and the Archdiocese's file shows what it kept to itself. That is not a promise about anyone else's case. Some pre-1983 claims are barred, and a lawyer may tell you yours is one of them. It is a real path, and the only honest way to learn where you stand on it is to ask.

So: probably not a clean no-deadline case for most of you, possibly a path anyway, and either way a conversation with a lawyer, not something a web page settles. Illinois has no revival window; the last bill died in 2025. The conversation costs nothing.

Your situation still qualifies even if

It wasn't Maday. Another priest, a teacher, a scout leader at one of those parishes; the case is against the institution either way.
You have never said it out loud to anyone. Most of the 72 hadn't either, until they did.
It happened on a trip, in a car, at a hotel pool, in Wisconsin or Indiana, not on parish grounds.
Some lawyer, years ago, said you'd missed your window. Illinois rewrote the law in 2014; that answer may be stale. Ask again.
The Archdiocese wrote you once, or called, and nothing ever came of it.
You live somewhere else now. Most of his altar servers do.

Where he was

St. John of God, Chicago, 1964 to 1966. St. Leo, Chicago, 1966 to 1969. Oak Lawn next, St. Louis de Montfort, 1969 to 1977, the longest he stayed anywhere. St. Bede the Venerable at 8200 S. Kostner, Chicago, 1977 to 1983. Our Lady of the Ridge, Chicago Ridge, 1983 to 1989. St. Jude the Apostle, South Holland, 1989 to 1992. Then there's Catholic Scouting and the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Youth, from the early 1970s on, which is how he ended up so far from any of them: the Attorney General's timeline has Mundelein, Crete, Burbank, Mount Prospect, Rockford, Portage over in Indiana, and Wisconsin trips through 1984. The conviction itself is for outings to Oshkosh in 1986. Somewhere else entirely? Tell us anyway.

Questions people are asking

Was Father Maday convicted?

Yes. In Wisconsin, though, not Illinois, which matters for what it covers. The jury sat in Winnebago County Circuit Court and came back on April 22, 1994: guilty, three counts of second-degree sexual assault, and guilty on one count of intimidation of a victim, too. Twenty years. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals looked at it and, on March 13, 1996, left it alone. Two boys, one summer; that's all the conviction covers. Everything about Illinois, the six parishes and the 72, comes from the Archdiocese's list and the Attorney General's report, not a criminal court.

Who was Father Norbert Maday?

The man who ran the youth trips, and the associate, never the pastor, at six parishes between 1964 and 1992. South Side, Southwest Side, south suburbs. Everything else about him, the trial, the file, the settlement, sits up in the record with its dates and links, so we won't repeat it here except for the bones. Wisconsin conviction, 1994, 20 years. Out of ministry, 1992. Laicized, December 2007. On the Archdiocese's substantiated list. And 72 people, by the Attorney General's count in 2023, had reported him.

Is Father Maday still alive?

No. March 2019, at 81, per the Archdiocese's list; the prison and release years are in the timeline above. The claims were never against him anyway. They're against the Archdiocese, and they go on.

It was forty-plus years ago. Isn't it too late to sue in Illinois?

Maybe not. Illinois took the statute of limitations off childhood sexual abuse claims on January 1, 2014, but only for claims that were still alive that day, and that proviso is the whole thing. For most people on this page, born before 1983, whether the claim was alive turns on when you first understood the harm and on what was hidden from you. That is a lawyer's call, and the whole reason we ask the birth-year question.

Did the Archdiocese of Chicago know about Father Maday?

Its own file, released in January 2014 under a court settlement, records a report in July 1990 and a state police investigation in 1992, before the Wisconsin charges. The same file holds the letters from Cardinal Bernardin and Cardinal George trying to shorten his sentence after the conviction. Whether that adds up to legal responsibility for any particular kid is what a lawsuit decides. It has settled Maday claims before; $880,000 went to two St. Bede altar boys in 2021, for one. Admitted liability? Never, not in any of them.

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.