If you were a kid in one of Father Walter DeRoeck's parishes, or a Quigley boy in his years there, we believe you.

Six assignments in twenty-eight years. Park Ridge, Cicero, the seminary downtown, Logan Square, Glenview, Elmwood Park. The Illinois Attorney General's entry for him counts nine reported survivors, from the 1970s to 1986, and the Archdiocese's own file shows the parish staff at St. John Berchmans raising the alarm in August 1989, ten years before anyone took him out of a pulpit. If your years with him are the ones you have never talked about, this page is about you.

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This applies to you no matter what

He was on television. One of the rotating hosts of a religious talk show on Channel 7, the Tribune said in 1999, and the pastor everybody's mother liked. None of that is evidence of anything, and no court will treat it as evidence of anything.
It happened on a trip. The Attorney General's entry for him puts reported abuse in Michigan City, Indiana, in Colorado, in Hawaii and in Tennessee, not only in Cicero and Chicago. A trip that started at the parish is the parish's business.
He was never charged. The Archdiocese sent the 1999 allegations to the Cook County State's Attorney and nothing came of it that we can find. A civil claim does not need a criminal one first.
Nobody believed you then. Or you told somebody at the rectory, or at Quigley, and got the look. The Archdiocese's own file shows its staff writing memos about him in 1989 and the man made pastor again in 1996.
You're asking for a brother, a husband, a friend who was a kid in one of those parishes and can't do this himself. Reach out anyway.

Father Walter DeRoeck: what the public record says, and when

None of what follows is ours. It's the Archdiocese of Chicago's own file, the Illinois Attorney General, the Archdiocese's list and the Tribune, and every line below links to where it came from. He was never charged with a crime and never convicted of one. A name on a list is that list's finding, in that body's words, and the Archdiocese says of its own list that a substantiated allegation is its opinion and not a legal judgment. The word for everything here is allegation.

August 1989

The Archdiocese's file on DeRoeck, released in 2014, opens with the staff at St. John Berchmans, where he'd been pastor since 1985, complaining to the Vicar for Priests about a seminarian living in the rectory. On August 8 the Vicar wrote that Wally's obsessiveness with the young man "consumes all of his time and the parish gets nothing." On August 28 a note records a staff member saying that "Wally always seems to be bringing kids to the house." He stayed pastor there until August 1991. Archdiocese of Chicago file, via BishopAccountability.org (PDF).

March 31, 1999

The Chicago Tribune reported that the Archdiocese had put DeRoeck, 54, pastor of St. Celestine in Elmwood Park, on administrative leave after two men alleged "inappropriate sexual behavior" in 1986, when both were minors and he was pastor of St. John Berchmans in Logan Square. The allegations went to the Cook County State's Attorney. His turn as a host of the Channel 7 program Sanctuary was suspended, and the Archdiocese said he was in a "monitored setting." Chicago Tribune, via BishopAccountability.org.

March to November 1999

The Archdiocese's own paper on the same year. The two allegations came in on March 16 and 17, 1999; the file describes boys of 13, 14 and 15 and puts the conduct in 1986. On September 7 Cardinal George accepted his resignation as pastor of St. Celestine. On November 12 DeRoeck signed a protocol that kept him out of the Roman collar, required a daily call to the review office, and "restricted him from being alone with minors without another responsible adult." Five weeks earlier he had applied for a radio and TV production job in the Archdiocese's own communications office. Archdiocese of Chicago file, part 2, via BishopAccountability.org (PDF).

August 2001 to January 2002

The Archdiocese's list gives the end of it in one line, removed from public ministry in August 2001, resigned the same month, laicized in January 2002, and the start in another, ordained May 12, 1971, which makes it thirty years and a few months. Archdiocese of Chicago list (PDF).

March 20, 2006

The date the Archdiocese gives for adding him to its public list, priests with substantiated allegations of sexual misconduct with minors. BishopAccountability keeps a page on him too, and it boils the whole thing down to four dates. Removed March 1999, after two men said he'd abused them as minors around 1986. Resigned August 2001. Laicized January 2002. BishopAccountability.org.

November 6, 2014

The Archdiocese released the personnel files of 36 more priests with substantiated allegations, DeRoeck's among them, in what it calls a voluntary release, and said that "nothing was redacted or removed to conceal the identity of abusers." The 1989 memos and the 1999 protocol above are from that release. Archdiocese of Chicago, 2014 document release.

May 23, 2023

The Illinois Attorney General's Report on Catholic Clergy Child Sex Abuse listed Walter George DeRoeck among 275 clerics and religious brothers with substantiated allegations in the Archdiocese of Chicago. His entry counts nine reported survivors. It places the reported abuse in the 1970s and 1976 to 1978 in Cicero, 1976 to 1978 and 1982 to 1986 in Chicago, 1982 to 1986 and 1983 to 1985 in Michigan City, Indiana, 1982 to 1986 in Colorado and Hawaii, and 1986 in Tennessee. It gives the diocese's claim of first report as 1999. Illinois Attorney General, entry for Walter George DeRoeck.

February 10, 2025

The Archdiocese's list in its current form, Clergy with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of a Minor Substantiated by the Archdiocese, carries his six assignments and his status, laicized. It also says, of itself, that a substantiated finding "represents the opinion of the Archdiocese, and is not a legal judgment or determination." We repeat that here on purpose. Archdiocese of Chicago list (PDF).

We checked this on September 11, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from February 10, 2025. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who answers for what Father DeRoeck is accused of

Not him, mostly. He was laicized in 2002, and a man twenty-four years out of the priesthood is not who these cases are built against. They're built against the Archdiocese of Chicago, which ordained him, sent him to six parishes and a seminary faculty, and moved him each time. That is the theory, all of it. An archdiocese chooses who stands in front of the altar servers and the freshmen. If it had been warned, and it put him in front of them anyway, that is negligence.

So what did it know, and when? Its own file answers some of that. In August 1989 the staff at St. John Berchmans were writing to the Vicar for Priests about his obsessiveness with a young seminarian and about the kids he kept bringing to the house. That is in the Archdiocese's paper, in its own hand. What followed was a sabbatical in 1991, an associate's post in Glenview in 1992, and in 1996 a parish of his own again, St. Celestine in Elmwood Park. The two men who came forward in March 1999 were describing 1986, three years before those memos. The Attorney General's entry records the Archdiocese's position that the first report came in 1999. Put the 1989 file next to that date and you can see what a lawyer would want to ask about. That part is their job, though. Not yours.

And the Archdiocese can answer. It has never filed for bankruptcy, there's no claims deadline, and it settles these cases one at a time in the ordinary course; by its own statement it has paid more than $400 million to survivors. Nine of them this September. None of that is a promise about yours. It is the reason the question is worth asking.

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

Illinois took the deadline off in 2014. For a childhood sexual abuse claim there is no statute of limitations left, under 735 ILCS 5/13-202.2 as it has read since January 1 of that year. That part is real, and it's simple.

Here is the catch, and for DeRoeck's years it's the whole conversation. The 2014 law did not reach backward. A claim that had already died under the old rules stayed dead, and the Illinois courts have said so more than once. The rough line on every page we run is 1983: born that year or after, your claim was still alive when the law changed and you file on age alone. Almost nobody in the years the Attorney General's entry describes was born after 1982. So for most of you it turns on two other things. When you first understood that what happened is tied to the harm you carry, because the old twenty years ran from that discovery, not only from your eighteenth birthday. And what the Archdiocese knew and kept to itself, because Illinois keeps a separate door open when an institution concealed what it had. The 1989 memos and the 1999 removal are the kind of facts a lawyer reads for exactly that. One thinner thread: born in 1976 or later, and the old clock may not have run out by 2014 either. A lawyer decides which of these is yours, not a web page.

In plain words. For the boys of Cicero and Quigley and Logan Square there's probably a path, but it turns on facts only you know and on documents the Archdiocese has already put out once. It takes a conversation, not a guess.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You have never said it out loud. Not to your wife, not to a classmate, not in confession.
It wasn't DeRoeck himself. Another priest, a teacher, a coach; the case is against the institution either way.
It happened in Indiana, or on a trip west, not in Illinois. The Attorney General's entry describes exactly that, and the Archdiocese that sent him is in Chicago.
You served his Mass, or sat in his classroom, and thought the world of him. That doesn't cancel anything.
Some lawyer told you, years back, that it was too late. Ask again; Illinois rewrote the law in 2014.
You live somewhere else now. Most of his altar servers do.

Where he was

St. Paul of the Cross in Park Ridge, associate pastor, 1971 to 1976 · Mary Queen of Heaven in Cicero, associate pastor, 1976 to 1984 · Quigley Preparatory Seminary North at Rush and Chestnut, faculty, 1976 to 1984, and director of recruitment in his last year · St. John Berchmans in Logan Square, pastor, 1985 to 1991 · St. Catherine Labouré in Glenview, associate pastor, 1992 to 1996 · St. Celestine in Elmwood Park, pastor, 1996 to 1999 · Cardinal Stritch Retreat House in Mundelein, 1999 to 2001, after his removal · trips, retreats and cottages that started at any of them, including Michigan City, Indiana. If your contact with him was somewhere else, tell us anyway.

Questions people are asking

Who was Father Walter DeRoeck?

Ordained May 1971, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago for the thirty years after. Park Ridge first, five years at St. Paul of the Cross, then eight at Quigley North teaching, with his room at Mary Queen of Heaven in Cicero the whole time. Pastor of St. John Berchmans in Logan Square from 1985 to 1991 and of St. Celestine in Elmwood Park from 1996 until the Archdiocese put him on leave in March 1999. For a while he was one of the hosts of a religious talk show on Channel 7. He resigned in 2001 and was laicized in January 2002. He is on the Archdiocese's list and in the Attorney General's report, with nine reported survivors.

Was Father DeRoeck ever charged with a crime?

No. Not that we can find, and not that any of the lists say. The Archdiocese told the Tribune in 1999 that it had forwarded the two allegations to the Cook County State's Attorney; no charge followed. Which is why we call everything on this page an allegation, and why the road, if there is one, runs through a civil claim against the Archdiocese and not through a criminal court.

Can I still sue in Illinois when it was the 1970s or 1980s?

Sometimes, and it's a real question rather than a no. Illinois dropped the statute of limitations in 2014, but only for claims that were still alive that day, and a claim from DeRoeck's years usually wasn't, on age alone. What reopens it is discovery, meaning when you first connected what happened to the harm, or concealment by the Archdiocese. His file has facts that go to both. A lawyer reads them against your dates. That is the whole reason the form asks when you were born.

Is he on the Archdiocese's list?

Since March 20, 2006, yes, and the Illinois Attorney General's 2023 report has him too, with the same word on both, substantiated. The Archdiocese's list also says, about itself, that a substantiated finding is the Archdiocese's opinion and not a legal judgment. We'd say the same thing. A finding, which isn't a conviction.

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.

Will anyone find out I came forward?

Not from us. Your answers go to one person at ME2, and cases like these are filed under John Doe names as a matter of course. A lawyer walks you through that before anything is filed, and nothing is filed unless you say so.

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.