Leadership

  
Father Scott Donahue - President and CEO

Fr. Scott Donahue serves as President and CEO of Mercy Home for Boys & Girls.  Previously, he served as the Home's Associate President from 1996 to early 2006. He is also principal liturgist for and celebrant of the popular televised “Sunday Mass at Mercy Home” program, which reaches more than 50,000 Chicago-area shut-ins. 

Louis Scott Donahue was born in Chicago and raised with three siblings in suburban Mount Prospect.  He graduated from St. Viator High School, in Arlington Heights, in 1972.  In 1977, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Loyola University of Chicago.  His double major was in political science and accounting.

He entered St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, in Mundelein, Illinois, in the fall of 1977.  He became a deacon in 1981, and was assigned to St. Juliana’s Parish on Chicago’s Northwest Side.  On May 12, 1982, Fr. Donahue was ordained a priest.  He was assigned initially to St. Barnabas Parish, in the Southwest Side Beverly neighborhood, where he served as an associate pastor.

In 1984, Fr. Donahue was elected to a two-year term as vice chairman of the Association of Chicago Priests.  In 1985, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin appointed him vocation director for the Archdiocese of Chicago.  He served in this position for 10 years.  He returned to St. Juliana’s, as a resident priest, in 1987.

Fr. Donahue joined the Mercy Home Board of Regents in 1990.  Early in 1993, Fr. James J. Close, president of Mercy Home, invited Fr. Scott to join him in working with the children.  With permission from the cardinal, he accepted the position.  He was named Mercy Home's Associate President in 1996. That same year, Fr. Scottearned a master’s degree in social work from Loyola University.  He also received a master’s degree in theology from St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in 1982 and another, in applied spirituality, from the University of San Francisco in 1989. 

In January 2000, he and Fr. Close launched Mercy Home’s Legacy of Miracles campaign to raise $10 million to expand and open more homes for needy youth. In August 2003, the Reverend James J. Close Home was opened to accommodate more youth that ever before in Mercy Home's history. 

In April 2006, Fr. Close retired after 33 years of leadership of Mercy Home. With Cardinal George's blessing, Fr. Scott became Fr. Close's successor, and Mercy Home's eighth President. He currently resides at St. Robert Bellarmine Parish on Chicago’s Northwest Side.