Challenging times for former MU presidents
The Rev. Scott Pilarz, a former Marquette University president, last month became the first Catholic college president in Pennsylvania to remove from campus buildings the names of church leaders accused in a sweeping grand jury report of covering up clergy sex abuse.
The Jesuit priest who currently leads the University of Scranton made headlines again a week ago when he revealed that he has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a devastating disease also known as Lou Gehrig’s.
These are challenging times for former Marquette presidents, as the Jesuit university in Milwaukee announced this week that the Rev. Robert Wild requested his name be removed from a new residence hall because he mishandled accusations of sexual abuse against three members of his Jesuit order in Chicago more than 25 years ago.
Wild — one of Marquette’s most celebrated and beloved former presidents — led the university from 1996 to 2011, and replaced Pilarz on an interim basis from September 2013 to July 2014. Wild still works at Marquette as a successful fundraiser.
Wild asked Marquette’s board of directors to remove his name from a residence hall because of decisions he made in a previous role with the church — decisions he revealed he now regrets.
From 1985 to 1991, Wild directed the activities of Jesuits in northern Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and southwestern Ohio as provincial superior of the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits).
In a letter to Marquette leaders, Wild referred to a recent letter from Pope Francis on the sexual abuse scandal in the church, and said he made his decision to request his name be removed from a place of honor on campus “after much thought and prayer and careful consideration.”
“During my six years in office, accusations of sexual abuse of minors were lodged against three of our members,” Wild wrote in the letter to Marquette President Michael R. Lovell and the school’s board of directors.
“Looking back, I would have handled certain aspects of those cases rather differently than I did then,” Wild wrote.
The Marquette residence hall that opened to great fanfare last month as
the Robert A. Wild S.J. Commons will now be known as The Commons.
Catholics across the country are reeling from a new wave of accusations that have brought down an American cardinal and raised questions about what the church’s highest leaders knew and when.
Many Catholic schools and universities with buildings named after once-hallowed Catholic leaders are now taking steps to separate themselves from the clergy sex abuse controversy.
Pilarz last month announced he had decided to remove the names of three disgraced bishops from buildings on the Scranton campus as a way of showing “sympathy for and solidarity with” victims of sexual abuse in the Diocese of Scranton.
Pennsylvania is at the center of the latest clergy sex abuse scandal.
Last week, Pilarz revealed a different kind of news — a personal health challenge that will take his life.
In a video to the Scranton campus community, he matter-of-factly explained that he has ALS but wants to keep working. At the same time, he said, he hopes to help raise awareness of ALS.
Pilarz has been president of Scranton since March 2017. This is his second stint leading the Jesuit university in Pennsylvania. He also served as Scranton’s president from 2003 until 2011, when he left to lead Marquette. Pilarz resigned unexpectedly from Marquette in September 2013.