Priest To Return To Services After Brutal Beating

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A South Side priest who was brutally beaten in his own church is set to return to services Thursday evening.

The Rev. Daniel Mallette, 80, is expected to be at mass Thursday night at St. Margaret of Scotland Church, at 9849 S. Throop St. in the Longwood Manor neighborhood.

He was attacked and robbed while sound asleep in bed in the church rectory just before 12:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Parishioners at the church are expected to come out to support Mallette and other victims of violence at the service Thursday night.

LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio's John Waelti reports

Meanwhile, St. Sabina Church about two miles away continues to offer a $5,000 reward for anyone who identifies the perpetrators.

"It's just unconscionable that this would happen," St. Sabina pastor the Rev. Michael Pfleger said Tuesday. "They beat him up really bad."

The suspects were wearing black and were described as being dressed like ninjas when they broke into the rectory and found Father Mallette sleeping.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, himself a parishioner at the church, says the two men demanded money and threatened to kill Mallette. When he said he didn't have any, they began brutally beating him, leaving him with broken ribs and facial injuries.

Ultimately, the robbers got away with $600.

Mallette returned home within the day after being treated at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. Meanwhile, locks and alarm systems at the rectory were changed.

Mallette has been a fixture at the church since 1977. He turned 80 just this past weekend.

Parishioners say he regularly visits prisons, serves communion at hospitals, says Mass every day at 8:30 a.m., and maintains the schedule of a 40-year-old man.

Mallette also has a long history of working for civil rights in Chicago, and marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Alabama.

Police are investigating, but no one was in custody as of early Thursday.