Roy Larson dies at 90; Methodist minister became crusading journalist at Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Reporter

Roy Larson was a Sun-Times religion editor and columnist for 16 years who later became editor and publisher of the Chicago Reporter, which investigates poverty and racial issues.

After serving in Methodist churches as a minister, Roy Larson served the public as a journalist who investigated the powerful for readers of the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Reporter.

Mr. Larson, who was living at the Monarch Landing senior community in Naperville, died Tuesday at Edward Hospital in the far west suburb, according to his son Mark. He was 90.

In the early 1980s, Mr. Larson was the religion editor for the Sun-Times, where he worked on an explosive investigation of possible misuse of funds by Chicago’s then-Cardinal John Cody. The exhaustively researched articles not only became must-read journalism — they prompted denunciation by church officials. Some Roman Catholic readers canceled subscriptions.

Working with reporters William Clements and Gene Mustain, he probed whether Chicago’s autocratic cardinal had diverted as much as $1 million in tax-exempt church dollars to benefit his step-cousin Helen Dolan Wilson.

The cardinal died in 1982 before the completion of a federal investigation by then-U.S. Attorney Dan K. Webb.

Mr. Larson recapped the Sun-Times series in 2003 for Nieman Reports.

The stories started out, he said, by reporting “Cody provided the money for a luxury vacation home for his friend, Helen Dolan Wilson, in Boca Raton, Florida and that in earlier years he had helped Wilson get a job in the administrative offices of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis where Cody was the chancellor.”

In Chicago, “Cody had put Wilson on the payroll of the Archdiocese of Chicago while she was living in an expensive apartment on the city’s lakefront,” Larson wrote. The Sun-Times reported that chancery workers couldn’t recall seeing her in archdiocesan offices.

Further, Larson told NiemanReports, “Cody had steered insurance contracts to his friend’s son, David Dolan Wilson, and that Wilson was the beneficiary of a $100,000 insurance policy on Cody’s life.”

The reports rocked what was then described as the nation’s biggest Roman Catholic archdiocese and a city where church, labor and politics are intertwined.

Ald. Edward M. Burke (14) was among those who attacked the Sun-Times.

‘It would seem to me,” Burke said in 1981, “that one could conclude that the only difference between what the Sun-Times did to Cardinal Cody in this instance and what the Ku Klux Klan did to the Catholic Church in the early 1900s is that the Sun-Times leaders did not wear hoods and white flowing capes.”

Roy Larson, editor and publisher, examining the design of the Chicago Reporter.

“Studs Terkel used to read dad’s [Sun-Times] columns aloud on his show” on WFMT radio, his son said.

In a 1970 column, Mr. Larson wrote about Illinois poet laureate Gwendolyn Brooks being mistaken for a coatroom attendant at a Loyola University event.

Before appearing onstage at the college, “She looked through her notes in the cloakroom. While she stood there, two participants ... handed Miss Brooks their coats.”

She declined their offer. Instead, he reported, she “dashed off on a scrap of paper a short prose-poem” about the encounter.

“There was a kindness that he had that was a gift,” said former Sun-Times photographer John White, who travelled with Mr. Larson to Mexico for a 1979 visit by Pope John Paul II. “When he was talking to you and communicating to you, you felt the humanity.”

He was an early ally of the LGBTQ community, said Albert Williams, a critic, associate professor at Columbia College and former editor of GayLife newspaper. “He offered counsel on how to generate support in religious establishments for civil rights, for gay rights,” Williams said.

After working at the Sun-Times from approximately 1969 to 1985, Mr. Larson served from 1985 to 1994 as the editor and publisher of the Chicago Reporter, which investigates issues of race and poverty. He also helped found Catalyst, which covered education and Chicago school reform.

After leaving the Reporter, he became director of the Garrett-Medill Center for Religion and the News Media, his son said.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Laura Washington, who succeeded him as editor and publisher of the Reporter, said he “brought his considerable skills as a newsman to the Reporter at a critical time. His unprecedented work on the investigation of the Chicago Archdiocese and his extensive network in Chicago’s religious and civic circles brought the Reporter new credibility and prestige.”

“He was an intellectual, a man of ideas who launched many new innovative features at the Reporter, from using illustrations to new columns that explored culture and literature in the world of race and poverty,” Washington said.

He grew up in Moline. His father was a longtime employee in the mailing department of John Deere.

Journalist Roy Larson and his wife Dorothy would have celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary this June.

He and his future wife Dorothy met as eighth-grade classmates. They would have celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary this June, their son said.

After graduating from Augustana College, Mr. Larson studied at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. His son said he served as a minister at several churches, including Taylor Ridge United Methodist Church; Mayfair United Methodist Church in Chicago; Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in Park Ridge; Covenant United Methodist Church in Evanston and First United Methodist Church of Elmhurst.

Mr. Larson was outspoken in his opposition to the war in Vietnam and his support of civil rights and equality among races, which led to pushback at some of his churches. “He was disillusioned by organized religion, but kept going to church,” his son said. “It was no longer for him.”

He loved the writings of Martin Buber, W.H. Auden and E.E. Cummings, Mark Larson said.

His sons Bradley and Bruce died before Mr. Larson did. In addition to his wife and son, he is survived by his daughter Jodie Larson, seven grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. Services are pending.

Roy and Dorothy Larson and family.