If the Archdiocese of Milwaukee embraced transparency about child sex abuse as many other big Catholic organizations have done, the number of names on its public list of allegedly abusive clerics could triple, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel have found.Under retiring Archbishop Jerome Listecki, a South Side native who previously ministered in the Chicago area, the Milwaukee archdiocese’s list of “restricted” priests is among the least comprehensive of the 31 archdioceses in the United States that maintain a public accounting of an abuse crisis that has spanned decades.All 48 men on Milwaukee’s list of alleged child sex offenders are diocesan priests, meaning they report or reported to Listecki or his predecessors or soon will report to another Chicago cleric, Jeffrey Grob, who will be installed in January as Milwaukee’s new archbishop.The list excludes members of male Catholic religious orders who have been credibly accused of child sex abuse and lived, ministered or offended within that ecclesiastical jurisdiction that includes nearly 200 parishes and more than 500,000 Catholics in southern Wisconsin, including Kenosha, where the Chicago and Milwaukee metro areas converge.Diocesan priests generally staff parishes. Religious orders often run Catholic high schools and aren’t limited to a single geographic diocese. Orders also maintain a particular spiritual mission and their own hierarchy but need permission from a local bishop to serve in his domain. Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki, a native Chicagoan who served for years as a priest in the Chicago area. He’s retiring and being replaced in January by another Chicago area priest, Bishop Jeffrey Grob.Archdiocese of Milwaukee Roughly two dozen U.S. archdioceses publicize alleged abusers in both ministerial groups through lists, the release of personnel files or a combination of those. That includes Chicago’s archdiocese, though Cardinal Blase Cupich for years resisted including religious orders on his list. He relented in 2022 as Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul was preparing to release a report outlining the scope of abuse and secrecy by Illinois bishops. Related Kwame Raoul slams Blase Cupich comments on priest sex abuse report Three archdioceses have no public accounting — Miami, San Francisco and one that covers the military.Milwaukee appears to be one of just eight U.S. archdioceses that includes only alleged diocesan offenders and few if any accused religious order members. Milwaukee’s list would have about 140 names if religious order priests and brothers were covered, the Sun-Times and Journal Sentinel found, as well as several other accused diocesan priests who appear to be omitted.The newspapers found:28 members of the Capuchin Franciscans’ Midwest Province deemed to have been credibly accused of abuse have served within the boundaries of Milwaukee’s archdiocese, with none currently in active ministry, according to the group’s public list.23 credibly accused members of the Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits, served within Milwaukee’s boundaries, including at least a dozen previously assigned to Marquette University High School at various times, according to that order’s public lists. That includes the late priest Daniel J. Kenney, who was known to use a hand puppet of a monkey to interact with children.Eight credibly accused members of the Society of the Divine Word’s Chicago Province served or lived at some point in East Troy, Wisconsin, in Walworth County, part of Milwaukee’s archdiocese.Six credibly accused members of the Benedictine religious order have belonged to the Benet Lake Abbey in southern Wisconsin, according to that group’s public list. Among them is Brother Thomas Chmura, a monk arrested by the Antioch police in 2013 on charges of attempting to abduct a girl walking in the far northwest suburb. Brother Thomas Chmura, shown in a sex offender registry.Missouri State Highway Patrol About another two dozen priests and religious brothers who belong to other orders or dioceses and at some point ministered or lived in the Milwaukee area aren't on the Milwaukee archdiocese's list but are on other official church lists or a list maintained by the church watchdog Bishop Accountability or in government records.One of them is the late Rev. Bruce MacArthur, who was convicted of molesting kids in Wisconsin, where he served in parishes and as a hospital chaplain. Records show he admitted sexually abusing numerous children over a span of years. He's on church lists in South Dakota and Texas, where he also ministered, but not Milwaukee.Two of them are members of the Xaverian Missionaries who at some point were based in Franklin, Wisconsin, according to that group’s list.Three of them are on the credibly accused list maintained by the Diocese of LaCrosse, Wisconsin — which Listecki formerly led — showing they had past assignments in the Milwaukee area.Four are or were members of the Carmelite order, which has its own public list.Another seven have been part of the Society of the Divine Savior, also known as the Salvatorian order, which has a local headquarters in the Milwaukee area and no public list. Related Cardinal Blase Cupich is still keeping secrets on child sex abuse by order priests “This question has been a matter of repeated consideration by the USA Province Provincial Council of the Society of the Divine Savior,” a spokeswoman says. “It has consistently been decided that the privacy interests of all persons involved weighs against publishing such a list.”The Salvatorian spokeswoman confirmed the names of seven alleged offenders a reporter had found through other sources. But she wouldn’t say how many credibly accused members there are: “Out of the privacy interests of all persons involved in these matters, the USA Province is not providing that information.”Such reasoning has been rejected by victims, church reformers and even some bishops, who have called for church organizations to be transparent to aid in healing for those who were abused and to seek atonement for the church’s failures, including coverups regarding abusers in the ranks of the clergy.Pope Francis met in 2022 at the Vatican with leaders of several Catholic orders. Speaking about child sex abuse by clergy, he implored, “Please do not hide this reality.”But he hasn’t mandated that orders and dioceses publicly come clean. The Rev. Mark Santo, a deceased former Servite priest who lived or worked in the Chicago and Milwaukee regions but appears on neither the Archdiocese of Chicago’s list of credibly accused clerics nor one maintained by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.St. Philip High School yearbook The Conference of Major Superiors of Men, a consortium of male religious orders in the U.S. that includes the Salvatorians, has recommended that its member groups release public lists of their clergy credibly accused of child sex abuse. Related Catholic priest accused of sex abuse served in 9 church jurisdictions, including Chicago. So why is he on just one abuser list? Some have, while others haven’t. Even among those that have, there’s often sparse detail, such as no assignment histories, making it difficult to know where alleged child molesters served and, if they're still alive, where they are now. The same is true of some archdioceses that have omitted names of abusers on some lists, including Chicago’s, the Sun-Times has reported.“I’m not sure that a constellation of bishops has an orchestrated strategy” of secrecy, says Jason Berry, a New Orleans-based filmmaker and author of a 1992 book about the church’s sex abuse scandal, "Lead Us Not Into Temptation." “But what a given bishop does is heavily driven by what their attorneys tell them.”Speaking generally about the American church, Berry says, “I think they’re in damage control of the worst kind, trying to reduce the coverage, trying to reduce the potential for more litigation, trying to keep the lid on as best they can.”The Milwaukee archdiocese's website says that only diocesan clergy are included on its list — which was created in 2004 by Listecki’s predecessor Timothy Dolan, now a cardinal overseeing the Archdiocese of New York — because the accused from other dioceses or orders who served locally “are not accountable to the archbishop of Milwaukee.” Milwaukee Archbishop-Designate Jeffrey Grob, who has long served as a Chicago area priest and bishop.Archdiocese of Milwaukee The website says the Milwaukee archdiocese “has no way of knowing what allegations may have been received; whether they included allegations while in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee; how allegations were investigated; what standard was used in determining substantiation; and how allegations were eventually resolved.“There is also no certainty that the archdiocese would be informed of allegations against every priest who worked at some point in the archdiocese. Instead of publishing what would be an incomplete list, the archdiocese leaves the listing of names of clergy with substantiated allegations to their respective” groups.All Catholic dioceses in Illinois have public lists that include religious orders along with diocesan priests.In Wisconsin, the dioceses of LaCrosse and Superior list alleged abusers from outside their jurisdictions, including members of religious orders. The dioceses of Madison and Green Bay do not. The latter excludes two dozen alleged child-molesting members of the Norbertine order based in DePere, Wisconsin, and overseeing St. Norbert College. Related How Nate Lindstrom’s death by suicide spurred a push for more accountability on clergy sexual abuse Milwaukee’s church leadership has rebuffed calls to include religious orders on their public list. Church watchdog Peter Isely says that, after the Milwaukee archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection in 2011 in the face of financial pressure over sex abuse, accusers submitted claims in the proceedings involving more than 200 other clerics, church employees and order members beyond the 48 named priests.“If you don’t have the names up, you don’t care about children and families,” says Isely, who’s involved in several church reform groups including Nate’s Mission. “Who benefits from [omissions to lists]? The offenders and those who covered it up.” The late Jesuit priest Daniel J. Kenney, who is on his religious order’s list of credibly accused child molesters but not the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s list even though he served there.Provided It's unclear how many of those additional people have been deemed to have been credibly accused. That's something Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has been trying to determine in an ongoing statewide investigation of the Catholic church over abuse and coverups.One tip spurred by Kaul’s investigation led to criminal charges against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick for allegedly sexually assaulting a teen in Walworth County in the 1970s, though earlier this year McCarrick was deemed incompetent to stand trial due to health problems.Earlier accusations against McCarrick, who had been the archbishop of Newark and Washington, D.C., helped fuel the latest wave of the U.S. abuse crisis in 2018, along with disclosures from a Pennsylvania grand jury showing hundreds of abusive clerics in that state.McCarrick is on several public church lists of abusers, including those maintained by the Archdiocese of New York and the Archdiocese of Washington, but not Milwaukee’s.Child sex abuse victims want the horror they experienced acknowledged by the church, says Michael Finnegan, an attorney with the firm Jeff Anderson & Associates who has sued Milwaukee’s archdiocese on behalf of accusers. “Being able to see their perpetrator on a list gives that validation,” and “it’s intentionally misleading” for the lists to omit religious orders or anyone. Related Kwame Raoul named 451 Catholic priests and brothers in report on clergy sex abuse. Why wasn’t this ex-Augustinian priest on his list?’ Milwaukee’s list also appears to be missing the names of some diocesan priests, including the late Rev. Mark Santo, who had been a member of the Servite religious order but was assumed into Milwaukee under one of Listecki’s predecessors. Santo is on the list of credibly accused clergy in the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Missouri, but not Milwaukee’s.Listecki wouldn’t comment. Jerry Topczewski, Listecki’s chief of staff, says the archdiocese has “not been able to obtain details on why his name appears on that diocese.”The Servites don’t have a public list and are the subject of a number of lawsuits in California over allegedly abusive clerics. Among them is the late Rev. Kevin Fitzpatrick, who once served in Chicago and also, according to his death notice, in Milwaukee.Fitzpatrick isn’t on Chicago’s archdiocese list, either.Nor is Santo, who also served in Chicago. Another abuser who worked in both jurisdictions and isn’t on Milwaukee’s list and only recently was added to Chicago’s is former Augustinian priest John Murphy. John D. Murphy, a former Catholic priest in the Augustinian religious order. He served in the Chicago region and in southern Wisconsin. After being omitted for years, his name recently appeared on the Archdiocese of Chicago’s list of credibly accused clergy, but he isn’t on a similar list maintained by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.Sun-Times file Listecki’s office also wouldn’t say whether religious orders serving in the Milwaukee archdiocese must inform it about offenders from their ranks who have served in that area, as Cupich requires. Initially, Cupich hid that information from the public.Grob, who has been one of Cupich’s auxiliary bishops and is set to be installed as Milwaukee’s archbishop on Jan. 14, succeeding Listecki, says it's too early to discuss whether he will make any changes in terms of disclosure over abuse.“It’d be very inappropriate for me to speak,” Grob says. “I have not studied the matter.”Laura Schulte is a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter. Related Catholic church in Illinois vastly underreported clergy sex abuse, Kwame Raoul finds Augustinian Catholic order paid $2 million settlement over rape accusations against priest but left his name off sex abuser list Catholic priest accused of sex abuse served in 9 church jurisdictions, including Chicago. So why is he on just one abuser list? Catholic order hasn’t kept promise to name abusive clergy in the Midwest Benedictines’ world leader calls on Chicago-area monks tied to Benet, Marmion high schools to fully report clergy sex abuse READ THE SUN-TIMES’ ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION Click here to read Sun-Times Feb. 7, 2021, report. More coverage Related past Sun-Times coverage on Catholic clergy sexual abuse. The Watchdogs Catholic priest accused of sex abuse served in 9 church jurisdictions, including Chicago. So why is he on just one abuser list? The Catholic church’s transparency on accusations of sexual abuse by clergy members, including the Rev. Mark Santo, remains inconsistent and lacking across the United States, clouding the extent of the crisis more than 20 years after it exploded into view. By Robert Herguth [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   Religion Cardinal Blase Cupich turns 75, sends mandatory resignation letter to Vatican The cardinal, a close adviser to Pope Francis, is now at the church’s mandatory retirement age. He submitted his resignation letter, the Archdiocese of Chicago said, but the pope could refuse to accept it. By Cindy Hernandez [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   The Watchdogs Chicago-based Catholic order is keeping secrets about child-molesting clergy around the United States The Servites has had numerous priests and brothers accused of sexual abuse and faces an onslaught of new lawsuits. Unlike many dioceses and orders, the group has no public list of members deemed to have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. And other church lists are incomplete. By Robert Herguth [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   Obituaries Rev. 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By Matthew Hendrickson [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   The Watchdogs Benedictines’ world leader calls on Chicago-area monks tied to Benet, Marmion high schools to fully report clergy sex abuse “I think that they should be” posting lists of abusive members “because it’s been actually asked of us by the larger church,” the Rev. Gregory Polan told the Sun-Times. By Robert Herguth [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   The Watchdogs Kwame Raoul named 451 Catholic priests and brothers in report on clergy sex abuse. Why wasn’t this ex-Augustinian priest on his list?’ The attorney general didn’t name John D. Murphy. The Archdiocese of Chicago settled claims over Murphy but doesn’t include him on its list. And his order hasn’t named abusers — but said Saturday it hopes to “in the near future.” By Robert Herguth [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   The Watchdogs Kwame Raoul slams Blase Cupich comments on priest sex abuse report The cardinal’s questions on how the Illinois attorney general’s abuse claims were substantiated “are particularly perplexing because many of those 125 names” came from the Archdiocese of Chicago, Raoul said. By Robert Herguth [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   Letters to the Editor Cardinal Cupich’s response to clergy sex abuse report is disappointing Cardinal Blase Cupich’s statement in response to Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s report was overly defensive and tone-deaf. By Letters to the Editor [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   Editorials Cupich’s lackluster response to alarming undercount of Catholic clergy sex abuse won’t cut it There’s no room for anything other than full acceptance of the hard, brutal truth revealed by a five-year investigation: The Catholic Church in Illinois failed to acknowledge hundreds of allegedly abusive priests and other religious figures. By CST Editorial Board [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   The Watchdogs Catholic church in Illinois vastly underreported clergy sex abuse, Kwame Raoul finds At the start of a five-year investigation by the attorney general, Cardinal Blase Cupich told seminarians the Archdiocese of Chicago had “posted all of the names” of predatory clergy. As the investigation neared its end, Cupich kept adding names. 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By Cindy Hernandez [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   The Watchdogs Benedictine order admits keeping cleric at Marmion Academy for years after child sex abuse accusations The Catholic order’s Marmion Abbey has posted a list of “established offenders.” Unanswered: why Brother Jerome Skaja stayed with the order for years despite “multiple” credible accusations of molesting minors. By Robert Herguth [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   News ‘It’s good to be home,’ Rev. Michael Pfleger tells St. Sabina congregation In his first Sunday Mass since being reinstated, the Rev. Michael Pfleger ties unfounded sex abuse allegations to forces opposed to his activism. By David Struett [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   Religion Rev. Michael Pfleger reinstated at St. Sabina after review board clears him of latest sex abuse allegation Pfleger, 73, said he would return to lead Mass on Sunday. He has staunchly denied all claims of wrongdoing and was roundly supported by parishioners. By Mitchell Armentrout  and Violet Miller [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   Chicago Pfleger supporters call for priest’s reinstatement to his parish: ‘Bring Father Mike home for the holidays’ The Rev. Michael Pfleger, longtime pastor of St. Sabina Church, was removed pending investigation of a sexual abuse allegation from more than 30 years ago. By Michael Loria [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   Religion Lawyers to archdiocese: add Rev. George Clements to list of priests accused of sex abuse The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has paid $800,000 this year to settle decades-old claims against the longtime Bronzeville pastor and four other priests. 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