False sex abuse claims against priests — while rare — can hurt real victims and innocent clergy, experts say

CHICAGO — The sexual abuse supposedly occurred in 2003 at St. Agatha Catholic Church on Chicago’s West Side.

Accuser “John Doe” claimed in court documents that as a young boy he had been sexually assaulted multiple times during the after-school SAFE program by Daniel McCormack, a defrocked Chicago priest who pleaded guilty in 2007 to sexually abusing five children while serving at St. Agatha’s parish.

Memories of the abuse were repressed until 2020, according to court documents, when Doe filed a lawsuit against the former priest and the Chicago Archdiocese, seeking monetary damages.

Except the entire story was later proven in court to be a fabrication, seemingly in an attempt to get a settlement.

As the Catholic Church continues to grapple with a global decadeslong clerical sex abuse scandal, one ramification that’s emerged is fraudulent claims against priests and other members of the clergy.

While data seem to indicate these kinds of false allegations are uncommon, they do occur — and experts say the fallout can hurt real sex abuse victims as well as innocent clergy members, who often live in fear of one day standing falsely accused.

Larry Antonsen, a Chicago leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, worries that fraudulent claims can have a chilling effect on real survivors of sexual abuse who might refrain from coming forward for fear they won’t be believed — an added burden on those who have been harmed by the church and its clergy.

“They are really making it harder for victims to even come out and talk, because it’s a very difficult thing to do,” he said. “And I’m sure there are people … a very small number of people, who go after money. So when people come out and make false accusations, it scares people who might be thinking about telling their story to somebody.”

In this particular fraudulent case, the accuser was incarcerated at Pickneyville Correctional Center in southern Illinois from 2018 to 2022.

During that time, recorded phone calls using an identification number unique to the inmate captured him describing to family members the plans for his hoax, which he often referred to as “a lick.” Doe would talk on the phone about plaintiffs who received settlements based on allegations of sexual abuse by a priest; he expressed frustration that those people wouldn’t “put (him) on the lick” and “tell (him) what to do” to pursue his own claim.

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