Jesuit officials acknowledged on Friday that the president of Gonzaga University from 1961 to 1969, the Rev. John Leary, had been allowed to resign quietly and leave office rather than face arrest for the alleged sexual abuse of boys and young men, The Seattle Times reported. The allegations against Father Leary, who died in 1993, first surfaced in 1966, but his superiors swept them under the carpet. It is not clear how many people he abused, or if any of his victims were Gonzaga students.
The Jesuit officials’ revelation of the facts about Father Leary came as part of an investigation into a philosophy professor at Seattle University who died in 1976, Michael Toulouse, who is alleged to have molested a boy at the university in 1968.
