“Why do the interests of dead priests take precedence over live victims?” This was the question posed in 2006 by a woman who had contacted the Archdiocese of Chicago about abuse perpetrated by deceased Father Dominic Diederich. The archdiocese had already found evidence corroborating the allegations against him. But because Diederich had died in 1977, under the archdiocese’s longstanding policy, his name was not included on a list of priests credibly accused of abuse.
Beginning in the 1960s, Diederich was pastor at Saint Maurice in the McKinley Park neighborhood of Chicago, ...
