Editor’s Note: This article contains mentions of sexual abuse.

Three former residents of the Bronx have filed a lawsuit against Fordham University and the Archdiocese of New York that accuses both institutions of negligence in a priest’s sexual abuse of children on Fordham’s Rose Hill campus in the mid-to-late 1970s. 

The lawsuit, filed by Stinar Gould Grieco & Hensley, PLLC, and Laffey Bucci D’Andrea Reich & Ryan, LLP., represents three anonymous plaintiffs identified only as John Doe 1, John Doe 2 and Jane Doe 1. The suit alleges that plaintiffs experienced multiple instances of sexual abuse on campus by Father John Joseph McCarthy, who worked at Fordham from 1956 to 1992.

According to the lawsuit, McCarthy would invite neighborhood children from the Bronx to play handball and other games on campus. “After the children were done partaking in these activities, Father McCarthy would take them to get ice cream and candy elsewhere on campus, including in his on-campus residence,” a press release shared with The Fordham Ram from Stinar Gould Grieco & Hensley reads. “While enticing the children with promises of treats, Father McCarthy would take some of the children into back rooms and force them to engage in sexual acts with McCarthy and with each other, and in some instances took sexually explicit photographs of the children.”

In addition to these on-campus incidents, the lawsuit states that McCarthy also took children on overnight trips to Peconic Bay in Suffolk County, New York, where he would engage in sexual misconduct with minors aged 10 to 15. One of the alleged survivors of McCarthy’s abuse, who was present at a press conference on Thursday, Nov. 21, stated that McCarthy would visit his family home to build trust with his mother. “I was staying over at his house,” the anonymous survivor said. “That’s why he came to visit my mother.”

In 2019, Fordham issued a list of nine Jesuit priests formerly affiliated with the university who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors. The list included Father John McCarthy, who died in 1997. His obituary, published in the New York Times, reads “Fr. John McCarthy lived his Jesuit and social work values in his teaching and in his volunteer work with underprivileged youth. We will miss him.” His funeral mass was held at the Fordham University Church. 

This is an updating story.