As a damning report on priest sex abuse was released in Pennsylvania Tuesday, revealing hundreds of "predator priests" who sexually abused young victims, it appeared one of the priests named was assigned to parishes to suburban Chicago and Northwest Indiana in the mid-1960s.
Father Raymond Lukac, who was one of the "offenders identified by the grand jury" in the years-long report, served at St. Stanislaus Parish in Posen and taught at Bishop Noll Institute in Hammond.
Those assignments came even after church authorities discovered Lukac had secretly married a teen parishioner who was pregnant, according to the report. Lukac had allegedly forged another pastor’s name on the marriage certificate, then divorced her after she had given birth. He was sent “for treatment and repentance” and then reassigned out of state.
Lukac was also assigned to parishes or Catholic Schools in New Mexico, Indiana, Illinois and West Virginia.
The Pennsylvania Grand Jury report notes that in 2006 the Archdiocese of Chicago contacted the Philadelphia diocese as a woman came forward reporting abuse from Lukac’s Posen assignment. She said she had been abused for two years when she was 11 years old.
While no official complaints were reported from Lukac’s assignment in Gary, he was transferred to serve as a military chaplain. It’s believed Lukac died in 2000.
The Chicago Archdiocese did not immediatel have a comment on the report, but noted its website has published a "list of clergy who have substantiated allegation(s) of sexual misconduct."
