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

The Archdiocese had it in writing in April 1982. A letter from the St. Edna staff, to the Cardinal, about the alcohol and the boys. Their answer was to move him. Then move him again. Nine years and four parishes later a 13-year-old girl in Berwyn told the truth in a courtroom, and a judge believed her. The Archdiocese now counts 51 people who have said something similar about the same man.

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Looking for the Archdiocese page? Archdiocese of Chicago survivors.

This applies to you no matter what

It never felt like abuse at the time. Beer in the rectory, the magazines, a group of guys. The Attorney General's report describes exactly that as the method. A court doesn't care how it felt, only what happened and how old you were.
He is dead. He died in October 2019, nine years after Rome removed him from the priesthood. That closes nothing. The people already paid were paid by the Archdiocese of Chicago, and it is still there.
You told a priest, a nun, a parent, and nothing happened. Or you were at St. Odilo in 1991 and remember the meeting where the parish found out. Say so. What the Archdiocese knew, and when, is most of this case.
You were a girl. Nearly everything written about him is about boys. The one conviction is for a girl.
You are asking for a brother, a husband, an old friend from the parish who can't make this call himself. Reach out anyway.

Father Robert Mayer: what the public record says, and when

None of this is ours. It is the Illinois Attorney General, the Archdiocese's own files, a Cook County judge and the reporters in his courtroom, and every line links to its source. The conviction is a conviction, stated exactly. Everything else, the 51 allegations, the civil suits, the letters, is allegation, and we call it that.

April 1982

Staff at St. Edna in Arlington Heights wrote to Cardinal John Cody that Mayer was giving alcohol to kids, coming out of the shower nude in front of others, and had made sexual advances toward a teenager. More allegations followed that year about boys taken to his cottage. The Archdiocese found the evidence insufficient to remove him. Illinois Attorney General, Mayer narrative.

September to October 1982, and August 1983

The St. Edna staff asked for his removal. Archbishop Joseph Bernardin wrote that the goal would be a transfer "on grounds other than those brought by those who have complained," and that if there really was a problem "it will not be long for a crisis to develop elsewhere." Elsewhere turned out to be St. Stephen Protomartyr in Des Plaines; Mayer was gone from St. Edna by August 1983. Daily Herald, January 21, 2014.

December 22, 1983 to June 1987

Then a lawsuit, December 1983, over a 1982 outing where, it said, he'd exposed himself to altar boys and tried to fondle two of them; in 1985 the Archdiocese settled it, for $15,000. Des Plaines wasn't quiet either. More complaints, and by 1987 the police had been called. On June 2, 1987 Mayer put his name to an agreement: no unsupervised contact with anyone under 21. Then a new post: administrator of St. Dionysius in Cicero, and in 1990, pastor of St. Odilo in Berwyn. BishopAccountability.org, Chicago assignment record.

July to October 1991

Out of St. Odilo. The parish was told "personal reasons." A draft statement prepared for Cardinal Bernardin put it differently: Mayer had "repeatedly been the subject of allegations of sexual impropriety." When parishioners learned the real reason they met with Archdiocese officials that October, and a girl stood up and said he had abused her too. Illinois Attorney General, Mayer narrative.

December 4, 1991 to December 11, 1992

January 1991, the St. Odilo rectory, a parishioner who was 13. That is what the Cook County grand jury's four counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse were about. Judge Thomas P. Durkin heard it without a jury, in the Cook County Criminal Court, and found Mayer guilty on all four: "Sadly, the state has proven him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." Sun-Times, December 12, 1992.

February 1993

Three years. Prosecutors had wanted seven; Judge Durkin gave Mayer, 53 by then, three. Mayer told the court he had never touched her. In January 1994 he resigned from the priesthood. Sun-Times, February 5, 1993.

June 14, 2006 to August 12, 2008

Four men, then 38 to 43, sued Mayer and the Archdiocese in Cook County, alleging abuse at St. Mary in Lake Forest and St. Edna in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and that the Archdiocese ignored repeated warnings. Mayer was among the priests named in the Archdiocese's $6.65 million settlement of 14 cases in May 2007 and its $12.675 million settlement of 16 claims in August 2008. Archdiocese of Chicago news release, August 12, 2008.

May 23, 2023

51 reported survivors. That is the Illinois Attorney General's count for Mayer, with abuse reported in Chicago, Lake Forest, Fox Lake, Arlington Heights, Des Plaines and Berwyn, 1969 to 1992. Laicized July 2010, died October 2019, per the Archdiocese's own list. Illinois Attorney General, Mayer 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 Mayer did

Not him. He died in 2019, after prison, after resigning, after Rome laicized him in 2010, and Illinois doesn't let a claim for punishment follow a man into the grave. The claims that have been paid, and the ones being filed now, are against the Archdiocese of Chicago, which ordained him in 1964, assigned him to nine parishes, and kept assigning him after it had the St. Edna letter in hand. That is the whole theory. An employer told in writing that its employee is a danger to children, which responds by sending him to a new set of children, answers for what happens to them.

What makes Mayer different from most clergy cases is how much of the knowledge is on paper, in the Archdiocese's own hand. The 1982 letter to the Cardinal. A memo that fall calling the evidence "insufficient to warrant a forced removal." Bernardin's line about a crisis developing elsewhere. A 1984 memo about liquor, pornography and a photo album of unconscious teenagers. A 1987 agreement to stay away from anyone under 21, followed by a pastorate. None of that leaked; the Archdiocese put the file out itself, January 2014, and the Attorney General went back through it in 2023. The lawyer for the four men who sued in 2006 said he knew of no case where the Archdiocese's knowledge was so clear cut. He meant this file.

One more thing. In a 2005 declaration Cardinal Francis George wrote that the Archdiocese "does not consider itself in any way responsible for the activities of Robert E. Mayer." Two years later it was paying his accusers. A lawyer will know what to do with both facts. You don't have to.

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

For a lot of the kids in Mayer's last parishes, there is no deadline at all. On January 1, 2014 Illinois took the statute of limitations off childhood sexual abuse claims, under 735 ILCS 5/13-202.2, and hasn't put it back. If your claim was still alive that day you can file now. Next month, or in five years; it doesn't run out.

The catch is that the 2014 law did not reach backward. Claims that had already run out under the old rules stayed run out, and Illinois courts have said so. So, roughly: born in 1983 or later, and you can file on age alone. Born earlier, which is most people who knew him at St. Mary, St. Edna or St. Stephen, and it depends on two things a lawyer will ask about. When you first understood that what happened is connected to the harm you carry now. And what the Archdiocese knew and kept quiet, because Illinois pauses the clock while an institution is concealing. With Mayer, the concealment is in the Archdiocese's own memos. Most survivors don't get to say that.

So the honest answer: no clock for some, a real path for many, and a conversation, not a web page, to tell you which you are.

Your situation still qualifies even if

It wasn't Mayer. Another priest, a teacher, a coach at the same parish. The claim is against the institution either way.
Never said it out loud. Not to a spouse, not to a friend, not to anyone, and you don't know if you can. You don't have to know yet; nobody on the first call will push.
You liked him. A lot of kids did; that was how it worked, and it cancels nothing.
Some lawyer told you, years back, that it was too late, and maybe it was, then; Illinois rewrote the law in 2014, so ask again.
You live in Wisconsin or Indiana now. Most people from those parishes have moved.

Where he was

Seven of the nine parishes have dates. Oak Park first, St. Catherine of Siena, 1964 to 1969. St. Barnabas in Chicago, 1969 to 1975. Then north: St. Mary in Lake Forest, 1975 to 1981, and St. Edna in Arlington Heights, 1981 to 1983. St. Stephen Protomartyr in Des Plaines, 1983 to 1988. St. Dionysius in Cicero, 1988 to 1990. Last, St. Odilo in Berwyn, 1990 until he was pulled in July 1991. St. Agnes on Pershing Road and Immaculate Conception in Highland Park are on the Archdiocese's list too, no years given. The Attorney General's file adds his cottage in Fox Lake, and Alpine Valley, over the line in Wisconsin. Somewhere else, a trip, a retreat, a friend's house? Tell us anyway.

Questions people are asking

Was Father Mayer convicted?

Yes. All four counts, after a bench trial in the Cook County Criminal Court in December 1992, and three years in prison the following February. The indictment, the judge's own words and the sentencing are in the record above, each linked to the Sun-Times story that reported it. That is the only conviction. The other allegations the Archdiocese has counted were never charged, and this page calls them what they are.

Who was Father Robert Mayer?

A Chicago priest, pulled from ministry in July 1991 and convicted in Cook County the year after. Ordained in 1964, and over the 27 years before that he went through nine parishes, South Side to Lake Forest and out to Berwyn. A man who was 15 at St. Mary in 1977 told the Attorney General's investigators about the cool young priest who'd open the gym on weekends and kept beer in the rectory; that was Mayer.

Can I still sue if Father Mayer is dead?

Yes, because the case was never really against him. The four men who sued in 2006 named the Archdiocese of Chicago, and the Archdiocese is what paid, in 2007 and again in 2008. Same defendant today. It hasn't gone into bankruptcy, and it's still settling clergy claims one at a time, which matters more than it sounds.

Did the Archdiocese of Chicago know what Father Mayer was doing?

More than most. Its own files, published in 2014 and read again by the Attorney General in 2023, show the April 1982 staff letter to Cardinal Cody, the decision that fall not to force him out, memos in 1984 and 1987 about alcohol, pornography and a police call, a signed agreement in 1987 to stay away from anyone under 21, and then a pastorate in Berwyn in 1990. The Attorney General's conclusion: the Archdiocese "knew of his sexual abuse of children in the early 1980s but refused to remove him from ministry." Whether that is liability in your case is a lawyer's call. The paper exists.

What about the Illinois statute of limitations for child sexual abuse?

For most people there isn't one anymore. Illinois took it off on January 1, 2014, but only for claims that were still alive on that date. Claims that had already lapsed under the older rules are the exception, and those turn on when you first understood the harm and on what the Archdiocese concealed. That is why we ask whether you were born in 1983 or later, and whether you ever told anyone.

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.

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