Des Plaines police have no record of investigating Lake Zurich pastor accused of sex abuse

Des Plaines police officials said they have no record of investigating the Rev. David Ryan, the pastor at Lake Zurich's St. Francis de Sales Catholic Parish who has been asked to step aside while the Archdiocese of Chicago looks into allegations of sex abuse dating back to his days at Maryville Academy.

Des Plaines Police Sgt. John Rice said officers searched through decades of records and turned up nothing involving Ryan while he was at Maryville. Ryan started at Maryville Academy in Des Plaines in 1985 and was promoted to acting executive director in 2003, according to the St. Francis de Sales' website.

In a letter to the St. Francis de Sales parish Saturday, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich wrote that he asked Ryan to "step away from ministry" after the archdiocese received allegations "of sexual abuse of minors approximately 25 years ago while he was assigned to Maryville Academy." Ryan was told to live away from the Lake Zurich parish during the investigation, the letter stated.

Attempts to reach Ryan were not successful Monday.

Some members of the St. Francis de Sales community have expressed support for Ryan in the days since Cupich's letter.

"I don't know anyone who knows him that doesn't believe he's innocent or who doesn't believe there's been a mistake or that this is a money-grab situation," said Amanda Schelonka, a former student at St. Francis de Sales School who posted on Facebook that hearing Ryan had been accused was as shocking to her as if the allegations had been against a family member.

Schelonka, 27, acknowledged that there have been "many terrible cases" involving priests and sex abuse charges across the country, adding that she and other Ryan supporters would respect the findings of the investigation.

"We're not just blindly supporting him," Schelonka said. "But there's no question in the minds of people who know him that this is false."

Larry Antonsen, the leader of the Chicago chapter of the Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests, said he's never spoken to anyone who claimed to have been abused by Ryan, but he said he has talked to people who said they were victimized while living at Maryville Academy in Des Plaines.

While at Maryville, Ryan worked alongside the Rev. John P. Smyth for 20 years. Smyth died in April of 2019, shortly after allegations of abuse dating back to the early 2000s surfaced.

Antonsen said it is common for there to be a large gap between abuse and coming forward, adding that many of the those he works with first spoke out when they were in their 50s. Antonsen said he himself was abused as a sophomore in high school and blocked it out for decades until 2006.