The Archdiocese of Chicago is facing new allegations over its treatment of Black Catholic children who were sexually abused by priests at a former South Side parish.
Seven lawsuits filed Tuesday allege the Archdiocese knew about sexual abuse at the former Holy Angels Parish in Bronzeville.
“Holy Angels was not a sanctuary for children, it was a sanctuary for sexual predators protected by the Chicago Archdiocese,” attorney Steven Hart, who is representing the victims, said at a news conference.
Attorneys at Hart McLaughlin & Eldridge allege that more than 100 Black children, some as young as 5, were sexually abused by priests at the former parish and school over several decades. On Tuesday, the attorneys filed lawsuits on behalf of seven alleged victims, with plans to file dozens more.
Hart said they are seeking compensation for the trauma their clients suffered at the hands of the accused priests, as well as an acknowledgment from the Archdiocese that it failed to protect them.
“For decades, the institution that was supposed to be a sanctuary for family and children became a place where their innocence was stolen,” said Hart.
The Archdiocese of Chicago told the Sun-Times it did not comment on lawsuits.
Attorneys said they had documented proof that the Archdiocese was aware of allegations against four Holy Angels priests.
Priests named in the lawsuits were the Rev. George Clements, the Rev. Paul Smith, the Rev. John Calicott and the Rev. Kenneth Brigham.
Only Calicott is named in the Archdiocese’s Clergy Substantiated Allegations List.
Attorney Sean O’Malley claimed the abuse at the parish was “a consequence of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s fear of George Clements’s political potency.”
Clements, who died in 2019, was a longtime civil rights advocate on the South Side and was known as the first Catholic priest to adopt a child. Months before his death, he was accused of sexually abusing a minor in 1974 and claimed the allegation was “totally unfounded.”
But O’Malley called Clements an imposter and “probably the most prolific child molester in the history of the Archdiocese of Chicago.”
Clements became Holy Angels’ first Black pastor in 1969 and brought on Smith, the first African American diocesan priest ordained in Baltimore, to serve as principal of Holy Angels School. Under their leadership, the school grew to become the nation’s largest Black Catholic school, with more than 1,300 students.
Smith was found murdered in his home by an intruder in 1996. He had been left partially paralyzed in a car accident two years before.
O’Malley claimed Clements and Smith abused children together.
The lawsuits also allege that the Archdiocese assigned Calicott, who died in 2024, to Holy Angels despite knowing he had a history of sexually abusing children.
Calicott was placed under monitoring in 1994 but reinstated a year later. He was permanently removed from the ministry in 2002. But attorneys said the action came “too late” for their client, who was sexually abused at Holy Angels after 1995.
Although priests have been accused of sexually abusing children across Chicago, attorneys said it was “hard to ignore the race element” of the abuse at Holy Angels.
“It is our allegation that when you discriminate against children, against victims of child sex abuse through your indifference or your assessment of their credibility, you are discriminating against them based on race. We regard that as a form of malice,” said O’Malley.