The Benedictine Order on Thursday reached a settlement with 15 plaintiffs who said they were sexually abused by a priest while he served in the Chicago area.
That same priest, Fr. Terence Fitzmaurice, later was assigned to parishes in Phillips, Wis., by Bishop Raphael Fliss, according to Brenda Varga, Central Wisconsin Coordinator of the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests. Fitzmaurice served St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Phillips from 1986-1991 and Our Lady of the North Catholic Church from 1991-1999, said a Thursday story in The Phillips Bee newspaper.
The retired priest has denies the allegations, according to a Chicago law firm that represents Fitzmaurice. In a prepared statement dated today, attorney Matthew P. Walsh II wrote: "Fr. Terence Fitzmaurice emphatically and unequivocally denies the claims of child abuse."
Claims were settled for "purely economic reasons due to the cost of litigation" and liability was denied, he wrote.
Varga described Fitzmaurice as "a Benedictine priest given permission by Fliss to work in Phillips under Fliss's direct supervision as bishop." He sexually assaulted the children in Illinois before being transferred into the Superior diocese by Fliss, she said in a Thursday news release.
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During the 1970s, he met many of those youngsters as a supervisor for a job-training program run by the city of Chicago, lawyers for the accusers told The Chicago Tribune last month. Fitzmaurice recruited low-income Latino and African-American youths to earn money by painting rooms, assisting the elderly and doing other chores. He also invited the teens to visit a building next to his church that he dubbed "the clubhouse." There he would abuse some of them in a secluded room while others played air hockey or watched television outside, said Phillip Aaron, a Seattle attorney representing the 15 accusers.
Now 47, Michael Calvin said he met Fitzmaurice at age 13 when he and two friends learned a priest was offering summer jobs. The priest recruited other teens by driving to public housing and introducing himself, Calvin said.
The kids often mistook the priest for a policeman because he drove a Chevrolet and rarely wore his collar, Calvin said. Calvin said he saw Fitzmaurice not as a priest but as a mentor who provided salvation from the streets through gainful employment. But over the next three years, Calvin said, the priest took him or one of his friends into a secluded room of the clubhouse, gave them massages, unbuckled their pants and abused them.
"The alleged abuse occurred over 30 years ago ... and only recently did Michael Calvin and his contemporaries come forward," Walsh wrote. "The Benedictine Community at St. Procopius is standing behind and supporting Fr. Terence in his denial of these allegations."
No criminal charges have been filed against Fitzmaurice, Varga said, but the Chicago Archdiocese and Benedictine Order have agreed to pay six-figure settlements each to three men who have accused the priest.
Fliss has referred questions about Fitzmaurice to the Benedictine Order.
-- Portions of this story are Copyright © Chicago Tribune/ Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
