Rev. Alexander R. Anderson

Summary of Case: Anderson is known to have been accused of child sexual abuse by three different men, two of whom are known to have accused him of abusing them when they were residents of St. Joseph's Home for Boys in the 1980s. The archdiocese believed Anderson's denials, and he was never removed from ministry. Anderson sued one of his accusers.

Ordained: 1975

   

Start Stop Assignment Town/Accusations State Position Notes

1975

St. Louis Archbishop was John Joseph Carberry (1968-1979)

1979 St. Pius V St. Louis MO 2/4 Parish had a school with 358-329 students.

1979

Carberry was succeeded by John Lawrence May (1980-1992)

1980 St. Blaise Maryland Heights MO 3/3 Parish had a school with 285 students.
1980 1981 Immaculate Heart of Mary St. Louis MO 3/3 Parish had a school with 476 students.
    Diocesan Marriage Tribunal St. Louis MO    
1981 1983 St. Simon's Concord Village MO 3/3 Parish had a school with 432-475 students.
1983 1988 St. Joseph's Home for Boys

St. Louis

• In 2002 a man in his twenties accused Anderson of having sexually abused him when he was a child at St. Josephs' Home for Boys. Anderson denied the allegations and sued his accuser. His accuser countersued. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch
August 26, 2004)

• A second accusation surfaced in 2004 by a man who said Anderson also sexually abused him as a boy at St. Joseph's in 1988. (Post-Dispatch [St. Louis MO]
January 17, 2004)

• By 2008, there was known to be a third person accusing Anderson of molesting him as a child. (Voice from the Desert, Aug. 17, 2008)

MO chaplain The Home had 44 boys. It also had day treatment students.
1988 1992 St. Andrew's Lemay MO 2/2 Parish had a school with 221-186 students.

1992

Justin Francis Rigali replaced May as St. Louis archbishop (1994-2003)

1993 Assumption Mattese MO 2/3 Parish had a school with 432 students and a religious education program with 230 students.

1992

Raymond Leo Burke succeeded Rigali (2003-2008)

 2008 Sacred Heart Eureka MO 1/1

Parish had a school with 184-275 students and a religious education program with 170-352 students.

When Anderson was accused in 2002 of child sexual abuse, Bishop Dolan believed Anderson's denial "on the spot" because Anderson "said it with a lot of peace". Dolan headed the review board, which decided the accusation had no merit. Within two months of the accusation, the statute of limitations ran out, and prosecutors did not have enough time to persue the case before it did so. (New York Times
May 16, 2010)

2008

Burke was replaced by Robert James Carlson (2009- )

2010 St. Rose of Lima De Soto MO 1/1

Parish had a school with 71 students and a religious education program with 127 students

Anderson remains pastor of this parish as of Dec. 2010.


Source: Official Catholic Directory (New York: P.J. Kenedy and Sons, 1976-2009 )

Priests in a Parish: We use the following convention to show a priest's place among the clergy of a parish: 1/2 means that he is the first priest listed in the Official Catholic Directory (usually the pastor) and that there is a total of two priests at the parish. The shorthand 3/4 means that the priest is listed third on a four-priest roster. See our sample page from the Directory.

Note: The Official Catholic Directory aims to report the whereabouts of Catholic priests in the United States on January 1 of the Directory's publication year. Our working assumption is that a priest listed in the Directory for a given year was at the same assignment for part of the previous year as well. However, Kenedy and Sons will sometimes accept updates well into the year of publication. Diocesan clergy records are rarely available to correct this information. The Directory is also sometimes misleading or wrong. We have tried to create an accurate assignment record, given the source materials and their limitations. Assignment records are a work in progress and we are always improving the records that we post. Please email us with new information and corrections.

This assignment record collates Anderson''s career history as it is represented in the Official Catholic Directory with allegations as reported in the media. We make no representation regarding the truth of the allegation we report, and we remind our readers that the U.S. legal system presumes that a person accused of or charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty. Similarly, individuals who may be defendants in civil actions are presumed not to be liable for such claims unless a plaintiff proves otherwise. Admissions of guilt or liability are not typically a part of civil or private settlements. For more information, see our posting policy.

This assignment record was last updated on Dec. 3, 2010