Executive Summary
DANIEL KENNEY, S.J. (1932-2022) entered the Jesuits in 1950 and was assigned to teach theology at Creighton Preparatory School (hereafter “Creighton Prep” or “Prep”), a prestigious Jesuit high school for boys in Omaha, Nebraska, after completing his studies in 1965. Kenney gained a high public profile during his 24 years at Creighton Prep. Known for his charisma and commitment to the development of children’s potential, Kenney raised the funds for two programs for children that continue in the present. Operation Others, founded in 1968, mobilizes students in every Catholic high school to distribute food to children and families in need during the holidays. Camp Buford, operating today as “Go Beyond,” is a summer camp that gives economically disadvantaged children a wilderness immersion on a piece of land Kenney acquired in western Wyoming. Camp Buford reflects one of the hallmarks of Kenney’s public persona; the Omaha press referred to Kenney as “the Monkey Priest” for the monkey hand puppet named Buford that accompanied Kenney everywhere as an emblem of his interest in children and the quirkiness that cast an endearing image.
In 1989, officials at Creighton Prep dismissed Kenney in response to a credible accusation of sexual abuse of a Prep student. After a brief reassignment to Church of the Gesu on the Marquette University campus, where he maintained relationships with Prep graduates in the student body, Kenney was placed on sabbatical at Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, South Dakota for five months. The Jesuits put Kenney on a long-term assignment at Holy Family Basilica in Nairobi, Kenya where he lived for 10 years as a founder of a substance abuse treatment program. The Jesuits removed Kenney from public ministry in 2003. Kenney remained in Jesuit housing until his death in 2022, where he lived under restrictions that included not identifying himself as a priest, not wearing a Roman collar, and not appearing unaccompa- nied in public. Multiple unconfirmed reports state that Kenney was barred from entering the boundaries of the Archdiocese of Omaha, though he was the guest of honor at a fundraising dinner for Operation Others in 2000. After Kenney’s initial dismissal from Prep, seven other former Creighton Prep students have reported being sexually abused by Kenney while students—in most cases as incoming freshmen. The Midwest Jesuits deemed these allegations to be credible. Kenney was laicized without announcement or explanation in 2020.
Since 2018, when the Omaha Archdiocese and the Midwest Jesuits notified the public that Kenney was credibly accused of the sexual abuse of a minor, seven additional former Creighton Prep students reported instances of sexual misconduct by Kenney to the Omaha World Herald. Kenney neither admitted to nor denied the allegations against him, but maintained that producing evidence of abuse would be impossible. Kenney never faced criminal charges.
OUR STUDY STEMMED FROM QUESTIONS about the number of people who lived with unacknowl- edged and unhealed wounds from Kenney’s abuse and the enduring impact of these injuries on their adult lives. We soon found that vast swaths of the Omaha public and its substantial Catholic community who saw exposure, scandal, and the rehabilitation of Daniel Kenney’s image, without seeing justice and healing for survivors who also carry some effects of Kenney’s abuse. The Midwest Jesuits’ and Creighton Prep’s focus on “moving forward” from what it has constructed as a “prior era” of clergy sexual abuse threatens a corrosive impact across multiple sectors of the Omaha community. As the school for Omaha’s religious and secular leadership, Creighton Preparatory School plays a central role in shaping Omaha’s society, culture, and collective memory.
Therefore, Kenney’s case is not about “just one Jesuit,” but about a radiating web of victim/survivors, secondary victims (survivors’ parents and non-victimized classmates), bystanders, and the involuntary and voluntary protectors of Kenney and his image as “the Monkey Priest.” What began as a study of the lingering impacts of the Kenney case on student and alumni wellbeing at Creighton Prep evolved into a study of the longevity and impact of its unanswered questions. Naming Kenney as a credibly accused priest limited his access to Creighton Prep students and circumscribed his role within the Jesuit community. Yet naming Kenney’s misconduct has not restored the balance of power between victim/survivors and their perpetrators, nor has it catalyzed the cultural or systemic changes necessary to respond to the injuries inflicted by clergy sexual abuse. Daniel Kenney’s case is not unique. His case maps to a three-part pattern that is paradigmatic in cases of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church: an offending priest has a pat- tern of abuse that is only addressed under pressure from an outside authority (in Kenney’s case, this was a parent); the offending priest is moved to another location with just as much access to minors, usually in more marginalized communities; over time, the offending priest is shielded from consequences by the shift in attention to his impressive fundraising, public projects, or candor about a different struggle (in Kenney’s case, this was recovery from alcoholism). Jesuit education, in its holistic approach to developing “people for and with others,” depends upon ensuring students’ physical, emotional, social, and spiritual safety. It asks students and their families to engage in close mentoring relationships that enable profound learning experiences. For this reason, a deeper examination of Kenney’s case may shed light on broader patterns of clergy sexual abuse at Jesuit institutions that go undetected in other frameworks.
Participants in our semi-structured interviews independently corroborated documented evidence that clergy sexual abuse cannot be reduced to “just one” person, place, or phenomenon. Nor can clergy sexual abuse be corralled behind institutionally constructed markers of “the past.” The Kenney case, which officially came to an end in 1989, is as resonant in Omaha as ever. And it has revealed seven enduring phenomena of the clergy sexual abuse crisis of “the past” that persist in the present: 1) the broad systemic nature of abuser networks; 2) absence of language and practices to construct healthy masculinities; 3) compartmentalization of clergy sexual abuse within the Church that obscures the part that secular authorities and community members played wittingly and unwittingly in protecting abusers; 4) practices of profiling which create a false sense of security that priests with especially conservative or progressive politics are immune from perpetrating acts of abuse; 5) practices of “open dialogue” about some aspects of clergy sexual abuse that close off conversation about others; 6) enduring wounds borne by bystanders and those in the broader Omaha community; 7) survivors’ breadth of harm beyond legal definitions of abuse.
Provisional Conclusions
1) The potential of abuser networks is un- settling and remains unexplored. Through archival research and review of public documents, we found a disturbing fact: During Kenney’s tenure he overlapped with six other Jesuits who were later found to have had credible allegations of abuse. In addition, survivors indicated that there seemed to be at least some knowledge among the Jesuits at the school of others’ behavior. This was illustrated especially in survivors’ recounting of being pulled out of study hall to attend confession with Kenney. As noted by Ryan: “I assume he must have, like told [the proctor/teacher]. I don’t have any memory of him talking to them, but I think I would have been marked absent if he just would have pulled me out and not told someone.”
2) An absence of language and practices to construct healthy masculinities at the school seemed to minimize abusive behavior. Nearly all alumni we spoke with identified the pervasive culture of conventional masculinity at the school. Nearly every boy was expected to play football, and it was not uncommon for teachers and administrators to appeal to narrow masculine norms as tools for instruction and discipline. The perpetrator we studied created space for those who did not “fit” within this masculine ethos, promoting an alternative area where vulnerability was encouraged. Once in the vulnerable space, however, their separateness from the ‘typical’ culture of the school was exploited, increasing their own risk of isolation if they alerted others to their abuse.
3) Compartmentalization of clergy sexual abuse within the Church has obscured abuse from secular authorities and community members. The Catholic Church’s handling of clergy sexual abuse has demonstrated serious organizational gaps where dioceses and religious orders overlap – including in schools and missions that exist geographically in dioceses but are authorized and facilitated by orders such as the Jesuits. These gaps have allowed abuse and close calls to be obscured, minimizing any incentive to address or attend to these fissures. What’s more, some of these same mechanisms provide cover to institutions to prevent public scandal from damaging the organizational reputation.
4) Practices of profiling can create a false sense of security that priests with especially conservative or progressive politics are immune from perpetrating acts of abuse. One of the more common themes we heard from interviewees was that Kenney — as a well-known, progressive priest who pushed for racial and economic justice– was thought to be “one of the good guys.” At the time he was teaching at Creighton Prep, the Church itself was undergoing turmoil after Vatican II. Indeed, he pushed the school to engage in meaningful service in disadvantaged communities and worked to increase scholarships for boys in these same communities to attend the school. As such, individuals who critiqued his behavior might have been seen as standing in the way of the reforms of Vatican II itself or as obstructing the racial justice for which Kenney worked. As a result, one of the reasons the Midwest Jesuits insulated Kenney from critique (and oversight) may have been in order to defend what they viewed as a vulnerable progressive agenda.
5) Practices of “open dialogue” about some aspects of clergy sexual abuse can close off conversation about others. It was clear that many believed that the “naming” of credibly accused clergy was the epitome of openness, as this is not legally mandated. However, the willingness of dioceses and orders to name clergy also seems to create a perspective that Church leaders can be responsibly entrusted to control all information surrounding abuse committed by clergy.
6) The harm generated by Kenney’s behavior is not limited to the period between 1965-89. Even after Kenney was removed from Omaha (in 1989) and, indeed, even after he was removed from public ministry (in 2003), survivors and bystanders continue to wrestle with the en- during effects of his abuse of vulnerable minors.
7) Legal definitions of abuse do not always capture the breadth of harm committed by abusive priests. While is it likely that Kenney’s actions violate current criminal codes, our inter- views revealed that even those directly harmed by him did not consider legal or even civil remedies for their suffering. And, although victim services offered by the archdiocese of Omaha and the Midwest Jesuits are available regardless of wheth- er litigation is pursed by the survivor, it is unclear how often these resources are sought, especially when survivors find it difficult to make sense of whether what happened to them was simply a “close call” or something more serious than that. Invitations from the school, the archdiocese of Omaha, and the Midwest Jesuits to anyone who has had an experience that they would like to talk about—rather than simply those who are certain that they have a claim to make—would make a big difference in helping to accompany the breadth of individuals who have been harmed and are still in the process of making sense of their experiences. While soliciting stories from people who are don’t neatly fit definitions of legal “rape” or “sexual assault” (or who are still making sense of their experiences) might open up the potential for increased reputational risk, it is an important way that Christian organizations—and Jesuit institutions, in particular—can put into practice Ignatian “indifference”.
Acknowledgments
THIS STUDY WAS FUNDED by a generous grant from Fordham University as part of Taking Responsibility: Jesuit Educational Institutions Confront the Causes and Legacy of Sexual Abuse. Co-sponsored by Fordham’s Department of Theology and Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies, Taking Responsibility advances research regarding the protection of children, youth, and vulnerable persons in Jesuit institutions of education.
WE ARE GRATEFUL to Fordham and all sponsors of Taking Responsibility for supporting our project. Our thanks go to the Taking Responsibility leadership team: Dr. Bradford Hinze, Dr. Christine Firer Hinze, Dr. Patrick Hornbeck, and Dr. Michael E. Lee. Special thanks also go to the project’s amazing coordinator, Dr. Catherine Osborne, who encouraged this project from the very beginning and project director, Dr. John Seitz, whose continued support has enabled us to communicate our findings to new audiences.
OUR DEEPEST GRATITUDE goes to those survivors, alumni, Jesuit educators, and Omaha community members we interviewed for this project. Your insights were invaluable and your vulnerability is a gift to those who follow after you.
WE ARE EQUALLY GRATEFUL to Daniel S. Hendrickson, SJ, Creighton University’s President, and Nicholas Santos, SJ, Rector of the Omaha Jesuit community, whose early support for this project made it possible. We are grateful to the experts who we consulted for background knowledge as we crafted our lines of inquiry: Terry McKiernan, Dr. Robert Orsi, Dr. Stephanie Krehbiel, Maka Black Elk, and (again) Dr. John Seitz. We give thanks to Dr. Kathleen Cummings, Dr. Peter Cajka, and others from the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame who invited us to participate in a generative set of scholarly conversations as part of their “Gender, Sex, and Power: Toward a History of Clergy Abuse in the US Catholic Church” project and to Dr. Kimberly Belcher and Dr. David Clairmont who featured some of this research in an early form at their “Accountability, Healing, and Trust” conference at the University of Notre Dame. We give thanks as well to St. Pius X Catholic Church in Omaha who invited us to present our findings in a pastoral context. We are grateful for Dr. Daniel Horan, Dr.Jessica Coblentz, Dr.Jennifer Beste, Dr. Susan Calef, Dr. Britta McEwen, Dr. Elizabeth Cooke, and Dr. Elizabeth Elliott-Meisel who provided invaluable feedback as our research progressed and to Dr. Kathy Lilla Cox, Dr. Tracy Sayuki Tiemeier, Dr. Donna Freitas, and Dr. Rachel Wheeler who offered feedback on this report. Finally, we are grateful to Dr. Paul Schutz for his stellar design work on this report.
Principal Investigators
Julia Feder, PhD is a Catholic systematic theologian. She is the assistant director of the Center for the Study of Spirituality and associate professor of religious studies and theology at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana. She is the author of Incarnating Grace: A The- ology of Healing from Sexual Trauma (Fordham University Press, 2024).
Heather Fryer, PhD is an independent scholar who served on the faculty of the History Department at Creighton University from 2004- 2021. Her publications on the social history of the American West include Perimeters of Democracy: Inverse Utopias at the Wartime Social Landscape in the American West (University of Nebraska Press, 2010) and the documentary film Shinmachi: Stronger Than a Tsunami (American Public Television, airing on PBS from 2019-2024). She is past editor of Peace & Change: a Journal of Peace Research.
Rebecca Murray, PhD is a professor of criminal justice and an associate dean at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Her works include effects of urban structures on crime, wrongful convictions and victim advocacy, and she has published works in journals such as Criminal Justice Review, Contemporary Justice Review and Crime and Delinquency. She founded the Nebraska Victim Assistance Academy through a U.S. Federal Grant awarded from the Justice Department’s Office for Victims of Crime.
