A 2023 report by the Illinois Attorney General found that Bishop Joseph Imesch had "covered up abuse by shipping off priests to unsuspecting parishes."

After the American Revolution ended in 1783, Pope Pius VI erected in 1784 the Prefecture Apostolic of the United States, encompassing the entire territory of the new nation.

With the industrialization of Illinois and the emergence of Chicago as an important center of commerce for the nation, the new churches and missions in the Joliet area flourished.

[6] In 1948, Pope Pius XII established the Diocese of Joliet in Illinois, removing its territory from the Archdiocese of Chicago, to meet the demands of the exponential growth of Catholicism in the region.

[7] In 1965, Pope Paul VI appointed Romeo Blanchette of the Archdiocese of Chicago as an auxiliary bishop in Joliet.

Blanchette's replacement, Auxiliary Joseph Imesch of the Archdiocese of Detroit, was named by Pope John Paul II.

Imesch started a sister relationship with the Diocese of Sucre in Bolivia, helping build and staff a hospital there.

[14] In September 2012, Bishop Conlon reinstated Reverend F. Lee Ryan, a diocese priest, to ministry and assigned him to serve homebound parishioners.

The diocese had suspended Ryan in 2010 from ministry in Crescent City after determining a sexual abuse allegation against him from the 1970s was credible.

According to The Huffington Post, Conlon ruled that since child molestation was not a serious crime under canon law in the 1970s, the diocese could only limit Ryan in ministry and not remove him completely.

[15] After receiving negative feedback within the diocese to his decision, Conlon reversed himself and permanently removed Ryan from ministry that same month.

[22] That same month, the diocese announced that it had agreed to pay $1.4 million to two brothers and another male who said they had been sexually abused by Reverend Leonardo Mateo during the early 1980s.

[26] In March 2023, the estate of a young man sued the diocese, claiming that he had been sexually abused by Alejandro Flores in 2008.

After suffering from depression and other problems for years, the young man died in 2022 at age 21 at a rehabilitation center in California.

It found that Bishop Joseph Imesch insisted on an "off-the-books" approach to pedophile priests, with the result that survivors of abuse had a harder time getting justice.

Imesch "covered up abuse by shipping off priests to unsuspecting parishes" and was disparaging and dismissive of the investigation, placing the blame on others for his own organization's failures.

Although Imesch has been replaced, the report remains critical of the "concentration of power" within the Diocese of Joliet which makes accountability difficult.

As well a special Responsorial Psalm was written by Ellen Coman, Director of Sacred Music at St. Irene Parish in Warrenville.