Omaha Archdiocese reports substantiated allegations of misconduct, abuse involving 38 clergy

Also on Friday, Creighton Prep announced it had suspended a Jesuit priest, the Rev. Jim Sinnerud, from public ministry because of an allegation of sexual misconduct received this week. Prep said the report referred to alleged misconduct before Sinnerud’s tenure at Prep. He taught at Prep from 1987 to 2008 and more recently supervised the gym during lunch periods and served in priestly ministry. His name is not on the archdiocesan list.

On Friday, Creighton University President Daniel Hendrickson, a Jesuit priest, said in an email to faculty, staff and students explaining the role that one of the two Jesuits listed in the archdiocesan report had at the university and called for prayers for those who have been hurt or abused.

The Chicago-based USA Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus, which governs Jesuit priests in Omaha, said Friday it was planning to release its list of Jesuits who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors on Dec. 17.

The Omaha Archdiocese noted that most of the cases on its list were old — predating 2002, when a bombshell report about Catholic priest sexual abuse in Boston forced the church in the United States to acknowledge two crimes: the sexual abuse of minors and an institutional cover-up.

That year, the archdiocese implemented reforms aimed at protecting children. But in a video statement released Friday, Omaha Archbishop George Lucas said he will seek a “more specific code of conduct” for clergy and other church workers “so that our clergy and all of you will understand what’s expected of us as we carry out our ministry.”

In the nearly five-minute video, Lucas referred people to the archdiocesan website for more details and apologized “on behalf of the people of God.”

“I’m sorry for what you have experienced in the church,” he said, adding: “We cannot change the sins or the betrayals of the past but we can acknowledge these ugly truths” in order to repent and avoid abuse happening again. He said the archdiocese has a zero-tolerance policy and that it is no place “for anyone guilty of abuse of a minor.”

The archdiocese submitted information on 24 archdiocesan priests with substantiated allegations of the abuse of minors or misconduct with minors. In all, documentation on 38 clergy was given to the attorney general in connection with alleged abuse or misconduct with minors as far back as 1956 but reported to the archdiocese between 1978 and 2018.

Of the 38 clergy:

>> 34 offended before 2002 and the establishment of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People

>> 24 were archdiocesan priests

>> 10 were priests from another state/country/religious order ministering in the archdiocese

>> 4 were deacons.

The archdiocese said the report will be updated if officials receive future substantiated allegations or after the archdiocese conducts an upcoming forensic audit of its historic clergy files.

Lucas said no one currently serving in ministry — 132 active priests and 215 active deacons in the Archdiocese of Omaha — has had one substantiated allegation of sexual abuse against a young person.

“When we see these numbers that go back many decades, we can see that there was a pattern of failure — both on the part of those who misused their office to abuse minors and vulnerable adults, and on the part of those who refused to listen to victims in a compassionate, just and forthright way,” Lucas said.

The following is a searchable list of those named by the Archdiocese of Omaha.