If you were a kid at St. Leonard or Quigley South under Father Russell Romano, we believe you.

Five years in Berwyn running the altar boys. Six more teaching at Quigley South and living in the St. Barbara rectory in Brookfield, where the students came over at night. The Archdiocese of Chicago was told in March 1985, told again in March 1986, and restricted him. His name didn't appear anywhere public until 2006. The State of Illinois counts 17 people who eventually came forward. If your years in those places were his years, this page is about you.

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Looking for the Archdiocese page? Archdiocese of Chicago survivors.

This applies to you no matter what

He is dead. He died in February 2020, laicized, living in Bolingbrook. The claims about him that have actually paid were paid by the Archdiocese of Chicago, in 2009 and again this September, and the Archdiocese is very much alive.
He was never charged with a crime. True, and it doesn't matter here. What exists is a state finding, a church finding, and a DCFS letter from 1986 that calls the report against him "indicated." A civil claim doesn't need a conviction.
It was beer and a movie at the rectory, and you told yourself for forty years that it didn't count. That is the pattern the Quigley South counselor reported in 1986. It counts.
You never told a soul. Or you told someone at Quigley and something did happen, quietly, and you never heard what. The Archdiocese's own file says thirty boys were questioned in the spring of 1986.
You're asking for a brother, a husband, an old classmate who won't make this call himself. Reach out anyway. More people do than you'd think.

Father Russell Romano: what the public record says, and when

None of what's below is ours. It comes from the Archdiocese of Chicago's own 136-page file on him, released in January 2014, from the Illinois Attorney General, from the Archdiocese's list and from the reporters who covered the settlements, and every line links to its source. We don't add to it. Romano was never charged with a crime. A review board's finding is called that, a DCFS finding is called that, and a settled claim is called settled, because a settlement is not an admission. The word for the rest is allegation.

June 7, 1974

A year out of the seminary, ordained May 9, 1973, Father Russell Romano was appointed to St. Leonard in Berwyn. His own assignment form has him there from 1974 to 1979. When the Archdiocese hired an investigations firm to look at those years, in 2008, its report confirmed one thing straight off: Romano was in charge of the altar boys at St. Leonard. Three priests who'd served there with him said so. Archdiocese of Chicago file on Rev. Russell Romano, released January 2014.

March 1985 to April 28, 1986

By March 1985 he was on the Quigley Preparatory Seminary South faculty and living out at the St. Barbara rectory in Brookfield. That month a student went to a school counselor about Romano's "inappropriate hugs and kisses." What the rector did about it was set up monthly supervisory meetings. On March 24, 1986 the rector called the Vicar for Priests: the counselor, Joe Binder, had students describing beer served to minors, pornographic movies, and Romano "being in the same bed" with a boy who'd stayed overnight. Binder reported it to DCFS that day. The next day Romano was terminated from Quigley South and put under a canonical directive to cease contact with anyone under 18. The faculty worked through about 30 students after that. Two more said Romano had fondled them. DCFS answered on April 28, 1986. Its word was "indicated," which the letter itself spells out as "credible evidence of child abuse and/or neglect has been found." Archdiocese file, Vicar for Priests memos of March 24 and April 25, 1986 and the DCFS letter.

January 22, 1991 and October 18, 1991

The Cardinal granted him a six-month leave. The letter went to him at the St. Barbara rectory in Brookfield, still, and told him he could "not exercise any public ministry whatever." He resigned from the priesthood that October 18. On March 20, 2006 the Archdiocese put his name on its public list of priests with substantiated allegations, the first place a parishioner could have read it. BishopAccountability.org, Romano entry.

August 23, 2007 to June 24, 2008

Three men came forward together, through the same lawyer, about St. Leonard: 1975 to 1979, the summer of 1980, and 1978 to 1981. A drive-in, alcohol on many occasions, waking up in the rectory. The Archdiocese sent it to Hillard Heintze, whose May 14, 2008 report is the one that confirmed the altar boys. On May 31, 2008 the Independent Review Board found "reasonable cause to suspect that the alleged misconduct occurred," all three, and on June 24 Cardinal George accepted the finding and sent the case to Rome. The board noticed something else that spring: Romano was, at that moment, a licensed clinical professional counselor in Illinois, in good standing. Archdiocese file, review board minutes, the June 2008 letters and the summary timeline.

July 21, 2009

Six claims against the Archdiocese of Chicago settled in mediation, four priests, Russell Romano one of them. The claimants' lawyers noted that Romano "has never been named in the news media as an accused child molester." No amounts were announced. He'd been laicized two months earlier, in May 2009. Earth Times, via BishopAccountability.org.

January 21, 2014

Under a settlement, the Archdiocese released its files on 30 priests. Romano's is 136 pages long and it's all in there, the 1985 note, the DCFS letter from 1986, the inquiry among the 30 students, the 2008 findings, one PDF anyone can open. The Riverside-Brookfield Landmark, reading through it, found one more. It comes from Our Lady Mother of the Church, his ten months there in 1979: parents had complained that Romano "would phone their teenage sons at night and invite them to a movie." He had worked as a licensed counselor, the paper reported, until 2013. Riverside-Brookfield Landmark.

May 23, 2023

The Illinois Attorney General published the state's report on Catholic clergy child sex abuse. Its entry for Russell Lawrence Romano: 17 reported survivors; reported abuse in Lansing 1973 to 1974, Berwyn 1973 to 1981 and 1985 to 1986, Chicago 1980 to 1986, Brookfield 1982 to 1986; first report 1985; restrictions 1986; resigned 1991; laicized 2009; died 2020. The Archdiocese's own list, dated February 10, 2025, carries the same dates and says a substantiated finding "represents the opinion of the Archdiocese, and is not a legal judgment or determination." Illinois Attorney General, Romano entry.

September 10, 2026

The Sun-Times reported nine claims settled with the Archdiocese in two weeks, $5.4 million all told, eight priests, abuse alleged between the early 1970s and the late 1990s of children aged 6 to 14. Beside the name Russell Romano the paper printed Quigley Preparatory Seminary South. "Nobody's paying that kind of money for something that didn't happen," the claimants' lawyer said. A settlement, once more, not a finding. Chicago Sun-Times.

We checked this on September 11, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from September 10, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who answers for what Father Romano is accused of

Not him. He's dead, and a laicized priest never had the money anyway. The claims about Romano that have paid were brought against the Archdiocese of Chicago, which assigned him, housed him and kept the file. The theory is plain. An institution that puts a 27-year-old priest in a rectory beside a grade school and hands him the altar boys owes those kids ordinary care. When it's told he is hurting them and keeps him, that's negligent retention. When it knows and chooses, Illinois lets a jury go past ordinary damages, against the Archdiocese for its own choices, not against a dead man's estate.

What makes Romano's case unusual is that the knowing isn't inferred. It's typed. A rector's 1985 note. A Vicar for Priests memo dated March 24, 1986. A DCFS letter of April 28, 1986 with the word "indicated" on it. A directive he signed that April 11. Then a leave letter in January 1991 addressed to the same rectory in Brookfield, five years on. The Berwyn years have a 2008 review board finding on all three men who came forward, plus the investigators' line that he ran the altar servers. A complaint about Romano doesn't have to guess at what the Archdiocese knew, or when.

One honest caveat. The years are old, the man is gone, and the Archdiocese has settled claims about him twice. A lawyer will want to go through your specifics before anything is filed, including whether one of those settlements already covered you. That's why the first conversation is with a person, not a form.

Your deadline: the Illinois statute of limitations for what Father Romano is accused of

Illinois took the deadline off in 2014. For childhood sexual abuse there is no statute of limitations anymore, 735 ILCS 5/13-202.2 if you want to read it yourself. Here's the catch, and it's why we ask your birth year. The 2014 law didn't reach backward. A claim that had already expired under the old rules stayed expired, and the Illinois courts have said so more than once. Born in 1983 or later, your claim was alive when the law changed and you file on age alone. But his years run 1973 to 1986, so almost nobody who was a kid under Romano was born that late.

So for nearly everyone here the question is the older rule, and it isn't a dead end. Before 2014 Illinois gave you twenty years from the day you understood both that you'd been abused and that the abuse caused the harm you carry. Not twenty years from the abuse. And the clock stops where an institution hid what it knew. The Archdiocese had a DCFS finding on Romano in April 1986, kept him in a rectory in Brookfield until 1991, and kept his name off any public list until 2006. A lawyer will want to know when you first connected the two, and what, if anything, anyone from the school, the parish or the Archdiocese ever said to you.

There's also a path that never goes near a courtroom. The Archdiocese has settled claims about Romano in July 2009 and again in September 2026, through mediation. In plain words: for someone who was a kid under him there is very likely still a way, but it turns on facts only you know, and it takes a conversation, not a guess from a web page.

Your situation still qualifies even if

It wasn't Romano. Another priest at St. Leonard or on the Quigley faculty, a teacher, a coach; the case is against the Archdiocese either way. St. Leonard alone has five priests on the Attorney General's list.
You have never said it out loud to anyone. Most of the 17 waited twenty or thirty years.
You were 18 by the time the worst of it happened, but not when it started. Say that on the call. One of the 2007 accounts reads the same way.
A lawyer told you, years back, that it was too late. Illinois changed the law in 2014, and the Archdiocese has settled on these years twice since. Ask again.
You live in Indiana now, or Wisconsin, or Bolingbrook. Same page, same call.

Where he was

St. Ann in Lansing, 1973 to 1974 · St. Leonard church and rectory at 3318 S. Clarence Avenue, Berwyn, from June 7, 1974 to 1979, and the altar servers there, which he ran; that parish has its own page, because he was one of five · Our Lady Mother of the Church on the Northwest Side of Chicago, 1979 into 1980, about ten months · Quigley Preparatory Seminary South at 7740 South Western Avenue, faculty from August 1980 until March 25, 1986, living at the St. Barbara rectory, 4008 Prairie Avenue, Brookfield, where the students came at night and where he stayed until January 1991; Quigley, both campuses, has its own page too. If your contact with him was somewhere else, a trip, a car, a movie, tell us anyway.

Questions people are asking

Who was Father Russell Romano?

A Chicago priest. Ordained May 9, 1973, then five years at St. Leonard in Berwyn, about a year at Our Lady Mother of the Church, and six on the Quigley South faculty while he lived at St. Barbara in Brookfield. A DCFS finding got him restricted in March 1986. Resigned October 1991, laicized May 2009, and dead by February 2020, in Bolingbrook. The state's 2023 clergy report, the Attorney General's, has him at 17 reported survivors.

Can I still sue if Father Romano is dead?

Yes. The claims were never really about him, they're against the Archdiocese of Chicago. It assigned him. It was told about him in 1985 and again in 1986. It settled claims about him in 2009 and, just now, in September 2026. No bankruptcy filing, no claims deadline.

What about the statute of limitations in Illinois?

Illinois took it off on January 1, 2014, though only for claims that were still alive that day. Most people who were kids under Romano were born before 1983, which puts them on the older rule, twenty years from discovery, plus whatever time the Archdiocese's concealment adds. That's why we ask your birth year and whether you ever told anyone. And the Archdiocese has settled Romano claims through mediation, the latest this September.

Did Father Romano ever get charged with anything?

No. Never charged, never tried. What exists is a DCFS finding of "indicated" in April 1986, a review board finding of reasonable cause in June 2008, his name on the Attorney General's 2023 list and the Archdiocese's own, and two settlements. A civil claim runs against the institution, not the man, and for that no conviction is needed.

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.