As Wild put it when deposed in the pending lawsuit against the Jesuits, with no apparent sense of irony, the accusation was "ambiguous, yes, but serious ... we didn't have fire, but we had smoke." Through his assistant at Marquette, Wild declined to comment for this story.
George could not be reached for comment. His mother, speaking by telephone from Alaska, declined to talk about McGuire. "This has been a very traumatic thing for our family," she said.
Kimberly Sandie
Victims’ advocates demonstrate at
USF in April after documents revealing the history of complaints against McGuire were released as part of an Illinois lawsuit.
Kimberly Sandie
Patrick Wall, a former Benedictine monk, now works as an investigator and lawyer for victims of clergy sex abuse.
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Two years later, the Jesuits began to grasp the scope of the problem McGuire posed. That's when Charles's family first turned to the order for help. The incident would lead to the most extensive paper trail of any of the allegations against McGuire until a criminal investigation into his conduct began 10 years later. It was also illustrative of how the Jesuits chose to manage their wayward priest.
In April 1993, Francis Daly, socius, or second-in-command, of the Chicago Province, received a call from California. Fessio, the San Francisco priest, told him that he had been approached by a lawyer who was a close friend of a devout Catholic man in Walnut Creek. The attorney reported that McGuire had had inappropriate contact with the man's 16-year-old son, Charles, while on a trip to Russia.
McGuire, according to Daly's memo on the conversation, was "accompanied by some young men, one of whom he was taking showers with and reading hard pornography together. They also masturbated, but McGuire may not have touched the young man." The memo noted, "Joe [Fessio] asked [the lawyer] to keep this quiet until he could represent this to McGuire's provincial."
Charles's father had consulted the attorney along with several other local Catholic men, including Fran Crotty, an administrator at the Kolbe Academy, a private Catholic school in Napa. In a subsequent phone conversation the lawyer, speaking on behalf of this group, told Daly more. According to Charles, McGuire had purchased "explicit pornography, worse than Playboy" and looked at it with the boy "so that [Charles] could learn more about his body." Daly's memo stated that "if no action were begun in a few weeks," Charles's family members "are prepared to go to civil authorities. ... However, they prefer to keep it quiet and allow McGuire to keep his reputation if he goes for help."
McGuire, when confronted by his Jesuit bosses in Chicago, denied or mitigated the allegations. In a manner that would become characteristic of his responses to abuse complaints, he tried to turn attention away from himself and attack his accusers. He called Charles's father "tyrannical" and "unbalanced" and asserted that the boy was "very depressed and deals with his depression through sex," according to Jesuit records.
McGuire acknowledged he was "tolerant" of Charles reading porn, but denied that he had purchased it. No showering together had taken place, he said, although he allowed the boy to wash his foot, which he said was difficult to reach. McGuire said they stayed in the same room, but claimed the door was left open. He protested that he was not violating his 1991 restrictions on traveling with minors because he and Charles were staying at religious residences in the company of other people.
In a May 1993 letter to Brad Schaeffer, head of the Chicago Province, Charles's father revealed further details. McGuire had bought "skimpy sexy briefs" for the boy. He had asked the boy to drive, though he did not yet have a license, and had introduced him to alcohol. Just the past month, Charles's father said, the priest had called from San Francisco demanding that Charles come to the city for 10 days to stay with him. When Charles's parents refused, McGuire flew into a rage, revealing what he said was information the boy had told him in confession. It is unclear from the records what McGuire shared, though Charles's father described it as a "temptation" for which McGuire prescribed urgent spiritual guidance. This alleged violation of the confessional seal was an extremely rare and serious offense for a priest, bringing with it potential excommunication.
In June, Charles's father, dissatisfied with the Jesuits' response, asked that the Chicago Province seek out other possible victims. This request was reiterated in another letter sent by the family's lawyer acquaintance in early July. "We will proceed on our own if we do not feel that there is a permanent resolution," the lawyer wrote, implying a threat of legal action.
In a July memo, Daly recorded another conversation with Charles's father; it was clear that the socius' patience was wearing thin. "Although these folks seem pleasant, they are quite controlling," Daly complained, describing them as "religious legalists." Beyond the interview with McGuire, there is no evidence that the Jesuits sought to independently verify Charles's allegations of sex abuse or identify other victims.
Despite this lassitude, McGuire was directed to get the "help" Charles's family had advocated. Shortly after the original complaint was delivered by Fessio, the Jesuits ordered McGuire to undergo a psychological evaluation and, later, a residential treatment program. Remarkably, McGuire was permitted to perform a retreat in Phoenix in the interim, with the proviso that he tell his superior that a complaint had been filed against him and that he should not be in the presence of minors unsupervised.
