Daniel J. McCormack
Father Daniel McCormack is one of the most infamous child abusers anywhere in Illinois. For years, he preyed on young, vulnerable boys in Black parishes on the West Side of Chicago. What separates McCormack from other prolific child-abusing clerics is that his abuse both occurred and was uncovered relatively recently. And despite reforms aimed at protecting children and removing abusive clerics, the Archdiocese of Chicago accomplished neither goal in the wake of McCormack’s abuse. In fact, even after McCormack was arrested for sexually abusing young boys, Cardinal Francis George himself allowed the serial predator ample opportunity to abuse again. All told, the archdiocese has received more than 100 claims of child sex abuse against McCormack—and has paid millions to survivors to settle those claims.
McCormack was born in 1968 and raised in Chicago’s West Lawn neighborhood near Midway Airport. He was drawn to the priesthood when he was just a child. “I believe I was called at the earliest of ages,” McCormack later explained, “and then I struggled with how to answer.” He studied American and African American history at an undergraduate seminary in Niles before enrolling at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake in Mundelein to continue his priestly formation.
There were plenty of warning signs while McCormack was a seminarian at Saint Mary. Three separate incidents of sexual abuse were brought to the attention of school officials in the spring of 1992. The incidents took place during 1988 and 1991; two involved McCormack allegedly abusing adult males, while the other involved him allegedly abusing a child. Saint Mary apparently dealt with these reports according to the standards of the time—meaning it didn’t deal with them at all. McCormack was allowed to continue his studies; apparently he was not disciplined, and there is no evidence the allegations were reported to law enforcement or even documented in his file. As Cardinal George conceded years later, McCormack should have been removed from seminary and never allowed to become a priest in the first place.
But the church wasted this early opportunity to prevent the tragedies that would follow McCormack’s wake throughout his tenure in the archdiocese. McCormack was ordained a priest just two years later, in 1994. His list of assignments over the next decade included parishes in areas of Chicago where the population was mostly Black: Saint Ailbe in Calumet Heights, Holy Family on the Near West Side, and Saint Agatha in North Lawndale. And it was only a matter of time before more allegations surfaced.
In 1999, while McCormack was assigned to Holy Family, a nun who was principal of the parish school reported an allegation of child sex abuse. A fourth grade boy had told her he approached McCormack to become an altar server; McCormack told the boy to pull down his pants so the priest could measure him. The nun confronted McCormack, who admitted he had “used poor judgment.” The boy’s mother also met with McCormack and then asked the nun not to pursue the matter further. The nun nevertheless raised McCormack’s behavior to an archdiocesan school official, who told her, “If the parents aren’t pushing it, let it go.” No one reported the incident to law enforcement or the Department of Children and Family Services. According to a later audit, this was one of several similar allegations or suspicions about McCormack brought to the archdiocese’s attention—and simply ignored—between 1999 and 2005.
McCormack, meanwhile, continued to put himself in close reach of children. He began teaching algebra and coaching basketball at Our Lady of the Westside School in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood. In September 2003, the grandmother of an alleged abuse victim who played on McCormack’s basketball team called the archdiocese to complain about McCormack. Her allegation was not investigated, apparently because the vicar for priests mistakenly thought she wished to remain anonymous (although of course the archdiocese was more than capable of investigating either way). McCormack remained in ministry.
Then, in August 2005, McCormack was arrested for sexually abusing a child. He was eventually released without charges, although multiple detectives found the survivor to be credible. The archdiocese did not remove him from ministry, however; it later claimed this was because the authorities did not charge McCormack with a crime and because the archdiocese could not collect enough information to conduct its own review. Instead, the archdiocese allowed McCormack to continue living at Saint Agatha under “restrictions” forbidding him to be alone with children, to host them in the rectory, and to teach them in school. The archdiocese assigned another priest to “monitor” McCormack but neglected to explain the purpose of his assignment. No wonder McCormack was quick to flout these “restrictions.” He continued to teach classes at Our Lady of the Westside and even took three boys on an out-of-town trip when his monitor went away for a holiday weekend.
In October 2005, the archdiocese’s review board recommended McCormack’s removal from ministry. But Cardinal George demurred because the police had declined to charge him. Later, the review board would offer a pointed rebuke of the cardinal’s decision: “You chose not to act on [our recommendation], and we now have a situation that reflects very poorly, and unfairly, on the Board.” Board members also wrote they were “extremely dismayed that yet another claim of clerical sexual abuse of a minor has been brought to our attention, and that action was not taken in a timely manner.” Years later, Cardinal George would admit mistakes had been made. “I am very dismayed myself,” he said. “This is terrible that more precipitous action was not taken so I share that concern. I understand it and I share it as my own as well.”
The additional claim to which the review board referred arose out of McCormack’s second arrest in January 2006. This time, he was charged with abusing five boys between the ages of 8 and 12 in the Saint Agatha rectory. The survivors were members of the basketball team McCormack coached and friends of his students at Our Lady of the Westside. McCormack pleaded guilty to all charges in July 2007 and was sentenced to five years in prison. But the impact of his abuse stretched far beyond the children who came forward in 2006.
And all the while, the warning signs were there for anyone to see. Seminary officials knew of multiple instances of abuse but did nothing to stop McCormack’s ordination. And when faced with McCormack’s arrest and a recommendation from his own review board to remove the disgraced priest from ministry, Cardinal George instead allowed McCormack to continue preying on vulnerable children in underserved neighborhoods on Chicago’s West Side. As the mother of one survivor put it, “If Cardinal George [had] done the right thing, these other boys would not have been molested. [Instead], he just opened the door for [McCormack] to take advantage of other Black children.”