LINCOLN, Neb.-- Murphy Lierley hadn’t seen the letter since he was 16. 

But as his mother neared the end of her life in 2015, she revealed that she had kept the message a priest had penned to her son back in 2007, shortly before the priest was quietly removed from their parish in Grant. 

Reading the letter as a 24-year-old felt like a gut punch. 

Let’s go back in time to that call I got from the bishop about me “grooming” you. It caused more of a meltdown than you were aware of, though I’m sure you could tell I was getting weirder and weirder …

Now, if someone said this about me, I wouldn't believe them, but I'm going to say it anyways: When I was with you, the hurt all went away. There is something about you that touches that place in my soul that was torn to shreds years ago …

Lierley recalled the uncomfortable bond the priest, decades his senior, had tried to forge; the way he’d sought private hangouts and, once when Lierley was 15, pressured him to give him a wrestling lesson.

He remembered how, during that lesson, the priest grabbed his genitals. 

And he worried: Did anyone at the priest’s next parish know to watch out for this behavior?

Lierley is still asking the same question. In 2016, he came forward to the Diocese of Lincoln, which oversees parishes across southern Nebraska, from the Missouri border to the start of the Panhandle. The diocese acknowledged the priest had an “emotionally unhealthy relationship” with Lierley, but disputed Lierley’s belief that it was sexually motivated. 

Eighteen years after Father William Grant sent the letter that would alter the course of Lierley’s life, Grant remains with the diocese. He has always denied there was any sexual contact with Lierley, the diocese said in a statement, and the church does not have a record of receiving any other sexual misconduct allegations against him. In his writings to Lierley, Grant said he was struggling with his own mental health issues and beginning to process trauma from his childhood. 

The Flatwater Free Press attempted to reach Grant for comment through emails, texts, phone calls and certified mail that detailed this story’s findings. Flatwater did not receive a response. 

“When you disclose a priest, you disclose all the parishes he was at. They’ve never made an effort to do that,” Lierley said. “They're saying I'm the only victim, but they're not asking people.” 

***

When it comes to child sexual abuse, the Lincoln Diocese doesn’t need outside oversight. 

That was the sentiment of diocese leadership in the early 2000s, when Lierley, then around 14 years old, first met Father Grant.

Former Lincoln Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz had made a name for himself as an outspoken opponent of reforms implemented in the wake of the Boston clergy sex abuse crisis revealed in 2002. 

The reforms established procedures for addressing allegations of abuse, offered guidelines for reconciliation and prevention, and established annual independent audits to measure compliance.

At the time, nearly all of the 195 dioceses across the country accepted the voluntary reforms. Lincoln was an exception. After the first year, Bruskewitz refused to participate in the audits.

“The Diocese of Lincoln has nothing to be corrected for, since the Diocese of Lincoln is and has always been in full compliance with all laws of the Catholic Church and with all civil laws,” Bruskewitz wrote in 2006 amid increasing scrutiny of the diocese’s position. 

That same year, nearly 300 miles away, Lierley was struggling with increasingly inappropriate behavior from his priest. 

***

Growing up in Grant, a small southwest Nebraska town, Lierley had a passion for wrestling and a deep love for the faith he was raised in at Mother of Sorrows Catholic Church. 

Lierley saw the priests who had led his church as mentors. So when Father Grant joined the parish around 2004, he expected more of the same. 

Grant took an immediate interest in him, Lierley said, pulling him aside to ask him which hymns parishioners knew. Grant’s interest didn’t end there. He wanted to know what music Lierley liked, what sports he played. 

Grant began writing him letters. He approached his wrestling coach with an offer to film meets, Lierley said, and became a regular fixture in the stands.

Then Grant asked for a wrestling lesson.

When Lierley got to Grant’s house, he said, they went to the basement. He said the priest was dressed in a wrestling singlet, which struck Lierley as odd. Then the wrestling began. Lierley remembers showing him different positions and being uncomfortable on top of him. They switched positions so that Grant was on top.

That’s when, Lierley said, he felt a hand on his genitals, followed by a grab.

After that, Lierley increasingly sought to distance himself from Grant. He stopped attending Mass at Mother of Sorrows, and hid whenever the priest came to visit. He never told his mother about the wrestling lesson. 

Unbeknownst to him, though, his mother was already harboring concerns of her own — concerns severe enough that she had contacted the diocese with fears about Grant’s conduct with her son. 

Grooming is intended to normalize behaviors that cross boundaries, said Charol Shakeshaft, an educational researcher whose work focuses on sexual misconduct by educators. The behavior described by Lierley and outlined in the letters appears to fit the typical pattern of behavior for boundary crossing that precipitates grooming, she said.

Even as Lierley distanced himself, he said he couldn’t fully escape contact with Grant, who volunteered at the public high school. It was there, in Lierley’s Spanish classroom, where Father Grant delivered the letter.

“I remember going to the first-floor bathrooms and opening it and reading it, and it was so inappropriate … I just felt scared that I couldn't get away from this person,” he said, “and that nobody was listening to me.”

In the letter, Grant asks Lierley to keep the contents of the message to himself before telling him that being accused of grooming was akin to coming home, finding your house had been burglarized, and, when you went to report it to the police, being arrested as a suspect. 

Grant wrote that he had a troubled childhood and, through therapy later in life, came to suspect he had suffered abuse as a child. People without family try to compensate, and in Grant’s case, he said he was trying to compensate for the loss of his brother through his relationship with Lierley. 

Lierley gave the letter to his mom. Shortly thereafter, Grant was gone.

***

When Lierley decided to approach the diocese in 2016, he was hopeful his allegations would be taken seriously. 

Bruskewitz had retired, and his successor, Bishop James Conley, had announced in 2015 that the diocese would participate in the audits the diocese had rebuffed a decade earlier.

Lierley provided the diocese with the letter Grant delivered to him at school and a second letter Grant had penned to Lierley and his mother as he was leaving the parish. Lierley recounted his experiences with Grant, including the wrestling lesson. 

In a statement, the diocese said that Lierley indicated that Grant had touched his genitals during a wrestling lesson but Lierley did not know if it had been intentional.

Through the process, Lierley learned his mother had made a complaint of her own, long before he had come forward. 

“In 2006, the concerns expressed by Mr. Lierley’s mother to the Diocese involved Fr. Grant spending time with Mr. Lierley, with her adding that she talked to her son and he denied any sexual contact occurred,” the diocese wrote in response to a Flatwater inquiry. “She also told the Diocese that she believed there was not any sexual conduct. Fr. Grant has always denied there was any sexual contact with Mr. Lierley. Mr. Lierley’s mother was encouraged by the Diocese to report to law enforcement should she suspect there was any sexual misconduct.”

The diocese said it reported Lierley’s 2016 allegations to the Nebraska State Patrol, which investigated the matter and turned a case file over to the Perkins County attorney for review. The attorney’s office declined to bring charges because of insufficient evidence to meet the burden of proof.

In addition to law enforcement, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, a Vatican body in Rome, reviewed Lierley’s allegations. It also found insufficient evidence of the canonical crime of sexual abuse of a minor.  

By 2018, the diocese had concluded its investigation. In February of that year, Conley met with Lierley in person to explain the conclusion of the church’s inquiry.

In a follow-up letter from Conley to Lierley, marked as confidential, the bishop expressed his “deepest apologies on behalf of the Church for any suffering and anxiety that you experienced as a result of the actions of Father Grant.” 

Conley wrote that Father Grant had been evaluated by a psychiatrist and psychologist.

“It appears from the evaluations that Father Grant’s emotionally unhealthy relationship with you was not sexually motivated, but was rather the result of anxiety, depression and insecurity rooted in unresolved psychological conflicts related to a troubled family dynamic,” Conley wrote.

Despite those determinations, Conley imposed several administrative restrictions on Grant, including that he not be alone with minors, according to the letter.

The diocese pointed to a letter sent by Lierley afterward, where he expressed gratitude for Conley taking his complaint seriously, and appreciation that Father Grant had retained some priestly ministry. The diocese said Lierley wrote that Conley’s diligence and attention was a profound blessing, and thanked diocesan personnel involved in responding to his allegations. 

Lierley acknowledged sending the letter, but said it was more about preventing a rift with the church. He was actively working for the diocese, he added, and pursuing his master’s degree in theological studies. He said that at the time, the diocese’s response seemed like the best he could hope for.

“Anybody with a background in trauma or abuse will see that victims almost always downplay their abuse early on … I think that that is definitional gaslighting by the diocese,” he said. 

Shakeshaft, the researcher, sees several problems with the diocese’s response. In instances where clear boundary violations have occurred, leaders have a duty to tell the community. Regardless of whether the diocese saw Grant’s actions as sexual, they acknowledged it was inappropriate, she added. 

“Let’s say the person was dealing drugs — that’s not sexual, would you keep that from the public?” she asked.

***

For several months, it seemed like that would be the end of it. Then, in August of that year, came new public accusations of childhood sexual abuse by other Lincoln priests.

Facing increased scrutiny in the wake of the new allegations, the diocese established its volunteer Task Force on Childhood Sexual Abuse. Made up of four parishioners, the task force set out to review previous allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. It eventually created a list of priests with substantiated allegations.

“Let me say here, I will not and we must not dismiss or rationalize any account of any person who comes forward with a concern, and we must fully investigate every report, even more strenuously than we have in the past,” Conley said in a 2018 column. 

Lierley was excited and nervous when the list came out in 2019. But then he read, with growing distress, as it became clear Grant’s name wasn’t in the list.

When Lierley approached Conley with questions, the bishop told him that it was the task force that had decided which clergy should be included on the list.

The diocese said it arranged for Lierley, at his request, to speak with a task force member, William Mickle, about the decision. Ultimately, Mickle met with Lierley, his wife and their pastor twice in spring 2019.

In audio recordings of the meetings provided by Lierley, which spanned more than two hours, Lierley repeatedly asked for clarity on the criteria for determining who should be included on the list.

Mickle, a former assistant U.S. attorney, said the task force relied on definitions under state law surrounding sexual abuse. He declined to directly answer Lierley’s questions about why specific priests who were accused of other misconduct were included but Grant was not. 

As the meetings went on, tension grew. Lierley and Mickle spoke over each other various times during the discussions, each growing audibly frustrated with the other.

Mickle disagreed with Lierley’s assertion that the letter from Grant had grooming language and said it was instead “an inappropriate letter by a priest pouring his heart out to someone who he wants to be friends with, someone who has shown him some friendship, shown him some camaraderie.”

Toward the end of the second meeting, tensions rose again while discussing the wrestling lesson and the subsequent genital touching Lierley had reported. 

“It was a non-sexual inadvertent touching. It was not a groping, it was not a fondling, it was not a massaging, it was not penetration. It was a glancing,” Mickle said. 

The two continued to argue over whether Grant’s conduct constituted grooming. 

“You appear to me to be hugely vindictive, to be hugely angry and frustrated and emotional and fixated on the events that occurred 13 years ago, and as I said earlier, I pray that you're able to find in your heart forgiveness for what was an inappropriate relationship, and that you will move on with your life, your baby and your family,” Mickle said. 

Citing confidentiality requirements, Mickle declined an interview request when reached by certified mail outlining his comments. He wrote in a letter that he was disappointed to learn that Lierley had not kept the meetings and discussions in strict confidence, as he requested at the beginning of the first meeting, and that Lierley had disregarded his request to not record the meeting. 

“I took no notes at either meeting, and I am unable to provide further context to snippets of conversation lifted from meetings that occurred over five years ago,” Mickle wrote.

 ***

In 2021, the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office released its own report detailing credible allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct. Grant was not included. 

In a statement, the diocese said it turned over Lierley’s allegations to the Attorney General’s Office, which did not file charges.

Lierley said he can understand why there wouldn’t be a criminal prosecution of Grant without enough evidence to make a case stick years later. But he doesn’t understand why the Attorney General’s Office and the diocese weren’t willing to even name Grant. The diocese’s silence feels especially galling to him, he said, given it has named other clergy members facing allegations of inappropriate behavior.

Grant remains a priest in the diocese, assigned to minister to prisons and nursing homes, according to the diocese's clergy directory. The order barring him from being alone with minors remains in effect. 

“Although Fr. Bill Grant is not listed in the Diocese of Lincoln’s list of priests with substantiated allegations of child sexual abuse, this does not mean that Fr. Grant’s conduct revealed from Mr. Lierley’s allegations was appropriate or without consequence,” the diocese said in a statement.

Lierley remains a member of the Lincoln Diocese to this day. He said his faith is the bedrock of his relationship with both his wife and their children. But he feels like he can’t move forward with that faith with the doubt and confusion the last decade has cultivated within him.

“If they believe what happened to me wasn't grooming, then I want them to formally state what level of boundary violation a priest must commit to get his name on this list,” Lierley said. “Because clearly, having access to minors restricted due to misconduct with a minor doesn't meet the threshold.”

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