Raymond Lukac
Ordained: 1954
- 1955: SS. Cyril and Methodius, Fairchance, PA (GBG)
- 1956: Holy Trinity (Slovak), Ford City, PA (GBG)
- 1957: Absent on Leave (GBG)
- 1958-1962: Unknown
- 1963: Holy Trinity (Hungarian), East Chicago, IN (GAR)
- 1964: Unknown
- 1965-1966: Active Outside the Diocese
- 1965-1967: Immaculate Conception, Clarksburg, WV (WH)
- 1965-1968: St. Stanislaus, Posen, IL (CHI)
- 1968: On Duty Outside Diocese (WH); St. Joseph’s Cathedral, Wheeling, WV (WH)
- 1969-2000: Unknown
- 2000: Died
Fr. Raymond Lukac had been a priest for less than one year before accusations of sexual abuse and misconduct surfaced. The first documentation shows the Chancellor of the Diocese of Greensburg, Cyril Vogel, met with Fr. Lukac in 1964 regarding numerous reports and letters from parishioners of SS. Cyril and Methodius, complaining that Fr. Lukac appeared to be romantically involved with an 18-year-old organist for the parish. Following the allegations, Fr. Lukac was transferred to Holy Trinity parish, where Fr. Matthew Yanosek discovered Fr. Lukac was involved with a 17-year-old girl. It was later discovered and reported to the Diocese of Greensburg that Fr. Lukac had impregnated the girl and married her immediately when she turned 18 years old.
A few years later, in 1957, the Bishop of the Diocese of Gary, Andrew Grutka, granted Fr. Lukac admission into his diocese on a trial basis. Fr. Lukac was allowed to teach at Bishop Noll Institute, a high school in Hammond, Indiana. Following more concerns over his behavior with girls, Fr. Lukac was removed from the Diocese of Gary. Afterwards, he moved to and worked in an unofficial capacity at St. Stanislaus in Posen, Illinois, until the Bishop of Greensburg, William Connare, could find a new diocese that would accept him. After asking many dioceses, the Bishop of the Diocese of WheelingCharleston, Joseph Hodges, agreed to take Fr. Lukac. After only a short time in the Wheeling Diocese, Fr. Lukac was removed from a high school after being “rather strong in his language in a talk to some of the high school students.” Following the removal, Fr. Lukac was assigned a position as chaplain in the Veterans Administration Service, where it is unknown how long he worked.
In 2006, the Archdiocese of Chicago requested information from the Diocese of Greensburg after receiving a complaint that Fr. Lukac had sexually abused a minor during his time in the Chicago Archdiocese. According to the complaint, Fr. Lukac had sexually abused an 11-year-old girl in the St. Stanislaus rectory sometime between 1963 and 1964. Six years later, in 2012, another allegation was made against Fr. Lukac, claiming he had sexually abused a girl while serving in the Diocese of Gary between 1961 and 1964. Fr. Lukac’s status as a priest, his whereabouts and whether he had access to children from 1969 until his death in 2000 are unknown.
Raymond Lukac was included in a 2018 Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report following an investigation into six of the eight Catholic Pennsylvania Dioceses: Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and Scranton. The investigation uncovered the sexual abuse of over 1,000 children over the course of 70 years by more than 300 predator priests. Also outlined in this report is the Catholic Church’s “playbook for concealing the truth.” The seven-point playbook details how top Church officials in the dioceses across Pennsylvania covered up the sexual abuse of children by clergy.