Father William J. McLeod
Posted April 17, 2009
Father William J. McLeod was born March 1, 1899, in Chapeltown, Quebec, Canada.
He was ordained as an archdiocesan priest on May 22, 1937 at St. Patrick’s Seminary, in Menlo Park, California, and died March 24, 1969, in Medford, Oregon . In his 32 year career, Fr. McLeod was assigned to eleven parishes throughout Oregon. His first assignment was in 1937 at St. Monica’s in Marshfield, Oregon, now known as Coos Bay. McLeod was transferred to other parishes on a near-yearly basis until 1944 when he took a five year medical leave of absence at Mt. St. Joseph Residence, an extended care facility in Portland, Oregon. Upon his release from Mt. St. Joseph’s, McLeod was assigned to St. Stephen’s in Portland, where he spent one year before being transferred in 1950 to Holy Cross. In 1951 he was transferred to Immaculate Heart parish. In 1952 he was assigned to St. Mary’s in Eugene where he spent two years before being transferred to his final assignment, Scared Heart parish in Medford, Oregon in 1954. Fr. McLeod spent 15 years at Sacred Heart, dividing his time at nearby St. Joseph’s in Jacksonville. See Assignment Record.
Abuse Allegations
Between 2000 and 2006, fourteen men came forward with allegations of sexual abuse by Fr. McLeod between 1940 and the mid-1960s. According to the victims’ testimony, McLeod followed a standard “MO” when grooming and abusing boys, usually between 10 and 17 years old: specifically, french-kissing, groping, and sexually gyrating against a boy while embracing him. Common themes included summoning a boy to his rectory under the pretext of helping him with a project, or for confession. Once there, McLeod asked about school work and grades or family matters then abruptly the discussion would change to sex, and Fr. McLeod began french-kissing and fondling the boy. He also would sometimes ask if the boy was circumcised, and then ask for a visual confirmation whereupon he would fondle the boy’s revealed penis.
During the 15 years Fr. McLeod spent at Sacred Heart in Medford, Oregon, he regularly took work party groups of children to help clean the nearby Jacksonville Church. When they were finished, Fr. McLeod often returned all but one boy to his home or school, then went back to the Jacksonville Church where he would abuse the boy. The history of Fr. McLeod’s sexual abuse history, according to victims, dates back as far as 1940, just three years after his ordination and during his assignment at All Saints Parish in Portland, when he abused a boy named “D.A.” D.A. brought suit against the Archdiocese of Portland in 2001. See Complaint.
In early 2002, the Archdiocese attempted to have the case thrown out based on its argument that forcible french kissing of, and sexual gyrations on the then-adolescent boy, in the words of the Archdiocese “do not amount to child abuse,” within the meaning of the law. A Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge disagreed with the defendants, ruling that it was up to a jury, not a judge, to decide whether such conduct is abusive.Plaintiff’s Response to Archdiocese’s Cross-motion for Summary Judgment.”
The Judge also rejected the Archdiocese’s claims that the Oregon Constitution’s and the U.S. Constitution’s religious liberty or due process guarantees should give the Catholic Church an automatic defense, and that Oregon’s child abuse law unconstitutionally discriminated against the Archdiocese. For journalistic comment on argument that forcible French-kissing is not child abuse, see column by The Oregonian’s Steve Duin.
In January of 2003, another of Fr. McLeod’s victims, a 10 year-old altar boy in 1949, filed suit against the Archdiocese of Portland. Plaintiff “C.M.,” alleged that between the age of 10-17, McLeod sexually abused and kissed him and fondled him over 50 times.
In 2006 four more men filed suit against the Archdiocese of Portland. One plaintiff alleged that McLeod had abused him in 1945 while he was visiting his mother and father at their home in Portland. Three others alleged abuse by McLeod between 1955-‘64. One of these men was fondled and kissed by McLeod over 100 times.
The Archdiocese of Portland settled all claims involving Fr. McLeod, and listed him on their website as a priest against whom credible allegations of child abuse were made.
Read the files against Fr. McLeod here.
The six short years he was in Portland, from 1950 to 1956, Father Rocco Perone, a “Paulist” priest (“OSP”), abused at least 15 boys, and quite possibly another half-dozen who never came forward—two of whom committed suicide. According to the victim’s testimony, Perone followed a standard MO when abusing boys: he called them up to the “Scout Room” (a storage room in the upstairs portion of a building at St. Philip Neri) and had them give confessions about their “impure thoughts.” He then asked the boys to “show” him, at which point he would sexually abuse them. He would bind the boys to sacramental secrecy, instilling divine fear in them should they speak up about it. 
Father Rocco Perone Documents